To Shame Or to Hide? Print Media Reporting of Sexualised Hazing in Taiwanese And

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To Shame or to Hide? Print Media Reporting of Sexualised Hazing in Taiwanese and

Singaporean Conscript Institutions, 1990s-2000s

Chong Shao Yuan

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Honours Program in History

University of British Columbia, Okanagan

(2020)

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Jessica Stites-Mor, Department of History and Sociology

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Yoon Kyong, Department of English and Cultural Studies

Author’s Signature: ______Date: ______

Supervisors’ Signature: ______Date: ______

Honours Chair’s Signature: ______Date: ______

Content Warning

Please note that this paper includes content of a sexual and violent nature. Coarse language and profanities may be included.

Abstract

During the 2010s, sexualised hazing was increasingly discussed in Taiwan and Singapore as investigations were launched regarding conscript deaths resulting from hazing. While this phenomenon was being reported in print media, it was often treated as a contemporary phenomenon with no historical basis. By analysing major English, Simplified, and Traditional

Chinese newspapers from Singapore and Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s, this thesis looks into how sexualised hazing was reported in the media; and when reported, whether the sexual nature of the activities were acknowledged or discussed in the context of conscript institutions. By conducting this analysis, this thesis contributes to existing literature by establishing the historical origins of sexualised hazing. My analysis reveals that in the 1990s, despite evidence of sexualised hazing in civilian society and conscript institutions, Taiwanese and Singaporean newspapers only focused on sexualised hazing taking place in civilian society and not in conscript institutions. However, by the 2000s, the Taiwanese media became more willing to report of such activities, framing them as a source of embarrassment for the military and as an important phenomenon within collective memory for Taiwanese men. In Singapore, while reports of hazing increased, they tended to focus on broader social issues, such as associated acts of illegality and bullying. Local factors such as national security concerns, the Asian Financial

Crisis of 1997, the rise of the Internet era, and polarising attitudes towards the Lesbian-Gay-

Bisexual-Transsexual-Queer (LGBTQ) community in these countries also influenced divergence between the two societies.

Acknowledgements

This acknowledgment was written not in any order of importance. How do you write an acknowledgment section for a thesis project that, despite being intended for a short year, was in fact conceptualised and designed over the course of three, and was only made possible given the help of so many different people?

To my family, who gave me the opportunity to complete my undergraduate education here despite it being financially difficult for everyone. For being supportive despite my constant workaholism even when I’m at home on short breaks. I do need to learn to prioritise family time.

To Ms Ho Hui Lin, an inspiration to my work as a social historian, for reminding me of my convoluted writings, for giving reality checks since I was a JC student and becoming a friend to wake up my unrealistic ideas even after I graduated.

To Dr. Jianlin Chen who was able to give me the opportunity to work in Melbourne using a method that would eventually be one I used for my thesis. For giving me advice on how to shape my thesis topic into something that is a little less sensitive, yet still very important for our society. To Dr. Jessica Hanser, who has not only been exposing me to so many new ideas as a historian but also as a friend, and for trying your best to look through my disastrous writing. For giving me the chance to meet Bianca in our class, whom I need to thank, for being my fellow student Historian who also helped me look at my rather scarring thesis chapter.

To my friends, who has been there for me since I started my academic journey which is really only halfway done. To Chin-wen and Erin, whom, despite not being fans of History or a fan of my topic, was so supportive you spent the time to come down to my thesis presentation. Your presence helped so much with my anxiety then, and made schooling so much more bearable. To Michelle, Tommy, Ervin, Ben, Jed, Adam, Ryan, Alan and all my other amazing friends at UBC(O), who were there for me as I worked through this paper to my satisfaction.

To Hoky. for the late nights you waited for me to finish my work just because I clearly could not let you rest even up until 5am the day before we moved out.

iii

To my friends from home, Ian Kiat, Brandon, Sheryl, Ines, Xinzhuo, Yong Ming, Tiffany, Caeryn, Yanqi, Justin, and so many more, who heard me talk about my research interests in absolute horror, and attempted to continue remaining interested in order to feed my enthusiasm. My stories in Canada don’t always make sense. I am grateful you heard me through.

To the History and Sociology department, who has been ever patient with my overzealous requests, beyond what is the norm for an undergraduate in university. To Dr. Higgs and Dr. Le Normand, who have given me so many opportunities which otherwise would not have been possible as a student, for believing in me. To Dr. Bonar Buffam who has been dealing with me swinging by your office and asking for the most random advice since first year.

To Sajni, who has been ever so supportive ever since first year, not just as a librarian in helping me obtain obscure resources that would have been otherwise impossible to obtain, but also as a friend and a mentor at work. To Donna, who came to support me (and has been so supportive to me) at my presentation despite only having known me shortly then. To Bruce, who helped me scour through the Taiwanese library archives at your own free will despite my key terms being so odd and despite it being holidays for you.

To Dr. Jessica Stites Mor, who has held your faith in me since my freshman year, and really, slowly became a friend as much as a mentor-supervisor figure for me through this Honours journey. To Dr. Yoon Kyong, who has never met me until this project, and gave precious advice despite this project being slightly different from the field you work on. I’ve been fortunate to have you both guide me through this project.

To Kevin, who travelled across the oceans with me to Taiwan and Singapore, and letting me indulge in my thesis despite it being our holiday as much as it was a work trip. I hope this trip has been a positive one for you all the same.

To all the academics and individuals whom I’ve spoken to during the exploratory stages of this research, whom I can’t list in this acknowledgement page because it is running out of space. To everyone else whom I might have missed because of the same logistical reasons.

This thesis would not have materialised without each and every one of you.

Table of Content

Introduction ...... 1 Why the 1990s and 2000s? ...... 4 Similarities between Singapore and Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s ...... 7 Methods & Procedures ...... 8

Chapter 1 Historiography ...... 13

Chapter 2 Taiwan: From A Bullying Issue, to a Source of Entertainment and Gossip ...... 22 Taiwan’s History: A Brief Background ...... 23 Taiwanese Military as a Sexualised Environment ...... 25 Sexualised Hazing – from Campus to the Military Environment ...... 26 Reporting of Sexualised Hazing – in the Taiwanese Society and in the Military ...... 30

Chapter 3 Singapore: From Singular, Legal Concerns to a Bullying Culture Broadly ...... 36 Singapore's History: A Brief Background ...... 37 Sexualised Hazing: When did it start? ...... 40 Sexualised Hazing in the 1990s and 2000s: How did it develop? ...... 41 National Service in the 1990s-2000s: A Sexually Prolific, And ‘Rapaciously’ Violent Experience ...... 43 Media Regulation in Singapore in the 1990s-2000s ...... 44 Presentation of Sexualised Hazing in Singapore: 1990s to 2000s ...... 47

Chapter 4 The Divergence of Two Conservative Societies from the 1990s to 2000s ...... 52 Were news agencies to talk about the acts of sexualised hazing at all? ...... 52 Were news agencies to discuss the sexualised hazing incidences happening within conscript institutions? ...... 55 Were news agencies to identify these hazing activities in the military as sexualised acts? ...... 58

Conclusion ...... 63

Bibliography ...... 72

Introduction

By the end of the first registration and recruitment exercise in 1967, more than 9,000

young men had been [conscripted]. Some of those men, now mostly in their 60s, said

they look back fondly on their time together as recruits… “We started the blanket party,”

said Mr Tan Weng Leong, 63, laughing, referring to a playful form of hazing where

someone is wrapped under a blanket while a group of people pummel him.1

-Straits Times, 1 February 2013

軍中不時發生性嬉戲事件，國防部一名資深軍官表示，過去基層部隊全部都是男

性，士官兵常有的性嬉戲是強脫內褲「露鳥」或「捉鳥」、脫褲拖行摩擦睪丸等，

後來愈玩愈離譜，有啤酒瓶或奇異筆插肛門、在下體抹牙膏、用奇異筆亂畫、用原

子筆打鳥、集體自慰，比誰射得最遠。[Occasionally the military sees sexual play

occurring, as indicated by one experienced commander in the Ministry of National

Defense, in the past the ground troop units were all made up of males, and the soldiers

will often engage in sexual play such as forced stripping and “revealing the bird” or

“catching the bird,” stripping and rubbing the testicles etcetera, and the sexual plays

became growingly outrageous, involving beer bottles and markers being inserted into the

anus, rubbing toothpastes onto the genitals, using markers to draw, and pens to hit the

bird, engaging in group masturbation, and seeing who can shoot the furthest.]2

-Apple Daily Taiwan, 2014

1M. Zaccheus, “Pioneer NSmen Relive Fond Memories,” The Straits Times, February 1, 2013, NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 2In Taiwanese colloquial terms, the penis may also be referred to as the “bird.” Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Nannv Bingchang Dawan Caiquan Tuoyi 男女兵常大玩猜拳脫衣 (Male and Female Soldiers Often Playing Finger-Guessing Games and Stripping),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), September 1, 2014, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019.

In 2018, the death of a National Serviceman, the late Corporal (CPL) Kok Yuen Chin, sparked a round of investigations against the Singapore Civil Defence Force. The cause of death for CPL Kok was identified as a result of hazing rituals in the Force. Thereafter, a series of similarly problematic ragging activities were identified as part of the Force’s “deeply ingrained culture,” including blanket parties, “inserting a battery into a person's anus, moving his entire locker onto the roof or locking them up in a cage.”3 These rituals were “mainly to humiliate rather than cause danger to a person.”4 About 3,000 km across the South China Sea in another part of East Asia, a parallel incident occurred in Taiwan in 2013. News media reporting exploded on the subject of abuses taking place in the Taiwanese military which were revealed after the reported death of Hung Chung-chiu.5 In addition, repeated incidences of bullying-induced trauma and suicide made Taiwanese young men scared of being conscripted into the military,6

Interestingly, some reports of bullying were similar in nature to the ragging rituals in Singapore: forced stripping of the victim, playing with the genitals, or even taking a screwdriver to poke at the victim’s anal region.7 While acknowledging the predominantly violent nature of the bullying

3A. H. Mamud, “SCDF Ragging Rituals: From Being Dumped in Pump Wells to Blanket Parties,” Channel News Asia, May 14, 2018, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/scdf-ragging-rituals-from-being-dunked-in-pump-wells-to- blanket-10232774, accessed on 30 September 2019. 4Mamud, “SCDF,” May 14, 2018. 5Y. Cai & L. Zhao, “Hong Zhongqiu Anjin Xuanpan Jiuhao Zhao Baishan Jun Jiqi 洪仲丘案今宣判舅號召白衫軍集氣 (Hung Chung-chiu case concludes today),” 中國時報 (China Times), 07 March, 2014, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 6J. Wang & Y. Huang, “ Wan Guohuo Lianzhang Kao Xiaobing Qingsheng 玩過火連長銬小兵慶生(Playing overboard in charge handcuffs junior soldier to celebrate birthday),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), 01 March, 2011, WiseSearch; J. Wang & Y. Wang, “Huang Guozhang Yizao Nvesi Jianyun Zhuicha Laobing Mengzhuai Retang Tangjiao yu Shiti Hongzhong Chu Xiangfu 黃國章疑遭虐死檢允追查老兵猛踹熱湯燙腳與屍體紅腫處相符 (Huang Guozhang Suspected to have died from bullying Prosecutor allows for Investigation on Senior Soldiers Burnt Legs from Hot Soup aligned with the Swollen Spots),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), 23 February, 2016, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; 中國時報 (China Times), “Youtube Buxiang Hui Budui Dabing… Cai Yilin Biaodi YOUTUBE 我不想回部隊⼤兵…蔡依林表弟 (Youtube I Do Not Want to Return to the Military, Soldier… Jolin Tsai’s Cousin),” 中國時報 (China Times), 17 May, 2013, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; M. You, “Yilan Tidai Yi/ Laoniao Ye Paoxiao Cainiao Pipi Cuo 宜蘭替代役╱老鳥夜咆哮菜鳥皮皮剉(Yilan Volunteer troops Senior Shouts in the Middle of the Night Newbies Shocked),” 自由時報 (Liberty Times), 23 March, 2012, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 7 Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Xiaobing Chugui Jingzao Shiguan Zhang Zhui Gangmen Xiuru 小兵出櫃竟遭士官長戳肛門羞辱 (Junior soldier comes out of the closet Sergeant actually pokes at the butt to humiliate),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), 20 November, 2015, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; D. Wang, “Wuzui Tuoku Zheng Taobao 6 Junren Panju 摀嘴脱裤整同袍 6 军人判拘(Covering the mouth stripping the pants and pranking their buddy 6 soldiers sentenced),” 自由時報 (Liberty Times), 17 June, 2014, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; X. Shi, “Gao Huazhu: Junzhong Weishi bu Gaibian jiu Xiatai 高華柱：軍中違失不改善就下台 (Gao huazhu: If Military Disciplinary Problems Do Not Change Will Step Down),” 自由時報 (Liberty Times), 17 March, 2010, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019.

activities, this thesis focuses on bullying and hazing activities and the sexualised nature of these acts.

In this thesis, I use Kirby and Wintrup’s definition of sexualised hazing, as “activities specifically designed to harass and abuse [individuals]… by sexualizing them, diminishing their masculinity… or their sexual identity, and/or by targeting them in sexually harassing and sexually abusive activities.”8 Much of the literature surrounding the topic of hazing has focused on the context of sporting and fraternity contexts globally. Psychologist researchers Mann et al. proposes that sporting and fraternity contexts continue hazing with the mistaken understanding that it creates a stronger bond between individuals.9 Furthermore, hazing activities tend to evolve to take on a sexualised and abusive form; these hazing activities tend to create a “cycle of abuse” which clubs and group environments sustain as part of their ‘culture’, entrapping individuals into these abusive activities.”10 Cases of sexualised hazing activities occurring in the military have been ongoing for decades globally as well.11 As seen in the above Straits Times article from

2013, some of these acts, such as the blanket party, have even been ritualised as proud traditions and upheld since the 1960s. Yet interestingly, most news sources and academic literature fail to recognise the sexual dimension of these hazing.

This thesis has chosen to focus on conscription institutions given how conscription laws mandates for every men who is a citizen of the nation to serve the military for a certain period of time should they be between a set age range. Most nations have opted to use the format of a voluntary military force rather than compulsorily drafting its citizens today. However, some nations have chosen to retain their conscription status because of the threats they face in the

8S. L. Kirby & G. Wintrup, “Running the Gautlet: An Examination of Initiation/Hazing and Sexual Abuse in Sport,” Journal of Sexual Aggression 8, no. 2 (2002): 51. DOI: 10.1080/13552600208413339. 9 L. Mann, A. R. Feddes, B. Doosje, and A. H. Fischer, “Withdraw or affiliate? The role of humiliation during initiation rituals.” Cognition and Emotion 30, no. 1 (2016), 80-83, 97-98, Doi: 10.1080/02699931.2015.1050358. 10 R. Y. Abdulrehman, “The Cycle of Abuse in Sport Hazing: is it Simply a Case of Boys being Boys?” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2006, 19, 27. 11 A. F. McCoy, “Same Banana”: Hazing and honor at the Philippine Military Academy,” The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 3 (1995): 696, DOI: 10.2307/2059448.

international arena, as well as because of their historical experiences.12 Peacetime conscription can take many forms. Singapore had chosen to allow for conscripts to be deployed in both homeland as well as national security institutions.13 In contrast, Taiwan had restricted conscription to only military conscriptions, although the duration (4 months to a year) was shorter than Singapore’s conscription duration (2 years). Regardless, the fact that every men have to be involuntarily conscripted makes the experience important for consideration. These men are expected to go through the rituals of conscription, whether these rituals be good or bad.

Why the 1990s and 2000s?

The 1990s and 2000s is an interesting period of time to explore because of the technological and global financial developments during this period. The change in the balance of power and shifting global concerns at the end of the Cold War, the rise of the Internet era, significant changes in attitudes towards gender and sexuality in the region, as well as the Asian

Financial Crisis of 1997, influenced the socio-cultural development of Taiwan and Singapore from the 1990s through the 2000s. These phenomena help us to understand the way sexualised hazing was reported, as further elaborated later in the thesis.

The end of the Cold War saw a shift in geostrategic power, as well as new global concerns. The Soviet Union’s decline made possible China’s ascent, which emerged economically stronger than ever after Deng Xiaoping’s economic and political reforms. In addition, with the 9/11 incident, the world found a new threat: “terrorism”.14

12 V. Asal, J. Conrad & N. Toronto, “I Want You! The Determinants of Military Conscription,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 7: 1472-1473, DOI: 10.1177/0022002715606217. 13 Within the Singapore Armed Forces, men had the chance of being deployed to the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, or the Republic of Singapore Navy. Singaporean men had to serve their time even if they wanted to convert to another citizenship before they were allowed to renounce their Singaporean citizenship as part of the law. C. H. Leong, W. W. Yang, & J. Hong, “National Service: The Holy Grail in the Management of Social Diversity,” in Managing Diversity in Singapore Policies and Prospects, eds. M. Mathews and W. F. Chiang (London, United Kingdom: Imperial College Press, 2016), 303; A. Chong & S. Chan, “Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism,’ The Pacific Review 30, no. 3 (2017): 371. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2016.1249906; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 688. 14T. Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008), 126-127; K. Roach, The 9/11 Effect: Comparative Counter-Terrorism (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1-20.

Interestingly, despite these geostrategic changes, geostrategic policies in Taiwan and

Singapore largely remained the same since before the 1990s. The shift in balance of power should have threatened Taiwan’s political legitimacy, especially after Taiwan lost its seat to

China in the United Nations.15 Yet, a perceived threat its political legitimacy would not be a major factor relative to Taiwan’s socio-economic concerns. Similarly, in Southeast Asia, the geo-political changes had not altered the Southeast Asian geo-strategic landscape significantly.

Situated in the Malay World of Southeast Asia, the Singaporean state continued perceiving itself to be in a vulnerable position, especially with the global fear of terrorism in the post-9/11 climate.16Domestic policy changes (including media regulation laws and policies) in Taiwan and

Singapore, consequently, were hardly a result of the geopolitical changes that were taking place internationally.

More significant than geo-political change was technological development with significant social implication. For example, the rise of the Internet era was significant: with events such as the Internet EXPO 96’, the United States made sure that the rest of the world was quickly connected through the Internet across industries.17 The Internet era reinforced existing infrastructures (e.g., news media outlets now had a new platform to employ), but it also allowed for average citizens to have greater accessibility and engagement with domestic and regional affairs.18 In the context of sexualised hazing activities in the military, this increased exchange of information would mean that things that occurred in the military could no longer be completely concealed.

15M. Meidan, “China’s Africa Policy: Business Now, Politics Later,” Asian Perspective 30, No. 4 (2006): 74, 76, 90. https://www-jstor- org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stable/pdf/42704565.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae552e44ea9727ed65e7acee41ea92104. 16J. Lowe, “Masculinizing national service: the cultural reproduction of masculinities and militarization of male citizenship in Singapore.” Journal of Gender Studies 28, no. 6 (2019), 688. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2019.1604329; Roach, 9/11, 129- 143. 17W. Francis, “The Dissemination of the World-Wide Internet in Taiwan: A Social Perspective” (paper presented at the Thirtieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Wailea, Hawaii, 7-10 January 1997), https://ieeexplore-ieee- org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=661579. 18J. Rodgers, Spatialising International Politics: Analysing Activism on the Internet (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 40, 75,76.

Attitudes towards gender and sexuality were also being transformed into the 1990s. The global Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic of the 1980s had resulted in a sustained stigmatisation of the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-

Transsexual-Queer (LGBTQ) community and those who were associated with them, a phenomenon that continued into the 2000s.19 This stigma was only reinforced by legal sanctions against people living with HIV, as well as the media’s sensational reporting of the pandemic, creating a paranoia within society.20

Yet, in the same period, some parts of East Asia seemed to be taking a liberal turn in their attitudes towards issues relating to LGBTQ matters. In Taiwan in 1986, Chi Chia-wei (祁家威)’s petition to legally marry his male partner began a chain of social movements in the 1990s towards greater acceptance of the LGBTQ community.21 In Singapore too, there were similar effects toward liberalisation. Its equivalent of ‘the Stonewall Riots’ took place in 1993, when a petition was filed against unjustified police persecution of the LGBTQ community, successfully garnering a police apology. This effort was later accompanied by growing acceptance of social movements, such as the Pink Dot, in response to the demands of the LGBTQ community.22 The polarised dynamics of conversations about sexuality help to explain why explicit references to the sexualised nature of hazing would be considerably contentious in the 1990s and 2000s.

Economic changes also played a role in influencing media agencies in their choice to report about sexualised hazing. The Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997 would affect most of

19A. Densham, “Introduction: Politics as a Cause and Consequence of the AIDS Pandemic,” Perspectives on Politics 4, no. 4 (2006): 641-645, https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1017/S1537592706220383; C. Racer, “Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases,” Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health (2018), URL: https://ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=94416876&site =eds-live&scope=site. 20R. K. J. Tan, “Internalized Homophobia, HIV Knowledge, and HIV/AIDS Personal Responsibility Beliefs: Correlates of HIV/AIDS Discrimination among MSM in the Context of Institutionalized Stigma,” Journal of Homosexuality 66, no. 8 (2019): 1082-1103, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2018.1491249; M. Brodie, E. Hamel, L. A. Brady, J. Kates, & D. E. Altman, “AIDS at 21: Media coverage of the HIV epidemic 1981-2002,” Columbia Journalism Review 42, no. 6 (2004): A1- A8, URL: https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A114593517/PPOP?u=unimelb&sid=PPOP&xid=dfaddb8b. 21M. S. Ho, “Taiwan’s Road to Marriage Equality: Politics of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage,” The China Quarterly 238 (2019): 482-503, DOI: 10.1017/S0305741018001765. 22Y.S. Ng, “A Compromising Position,” Overland, 227 (2017), 83-89: URL: https://search-informit-com- au.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=044898218767724;res=IELAPA.

East Asia and Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Taiwan.23 Consequently, the AFC led to reforms in the journalism industry, designed to enhance the market’s economic viability.24

Similarities between Singapore and Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s

The choice to conduct a comparative study of Singapore and Taiwan was not random. To start, demographically, both Taiwan and Singapore have been dominated by an ethnically

Chinese-majority since the 1960s.25 With these demographic similarities in mind, past research has explored how both societies have been governed by Confucian values in their social functioning. Founded on the Five Cardinal Relationships, or “wu-lun” (五倫關係), Confucian values are defined by the prioritising of social hierarchies and communal (i.e., the family and the community’s) interests.26 Even within the Hofstede typology, the Confucian values embedding both societies is identified as the foundation for the collectivist traits of being harmony- conscious and group-oriented in Taiwan and Singapore.27 On top of the Confucian collectivist values, the Hofstede analysis of cultural characteristics of nations suggests that Taiwan and

Singapore are similar because both societies have a higher acceptance towards power concentration, authority and hierarchies, being less willing to challenge the hierarchy in

23K. W. Li, Capitalist Development and Economism in East Asia (London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2003), 200-228, DOI: https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.4324/9780203166543 24Y. S. Wu, “Taiwan’s Developmental State: After the Economic and Political Turmoil,” Asian Survey 47, no. 6 (2007): 978, 982, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/as.2007.47.6.977; A. Croissant, “Changing Welfare Regimes in East and Southeast Asia: Crisis, Change and Challenge,” Social Policy & Administration 38, no. 5 (2004): 518-519, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2004.00404.x. 25The choice to use the 1960s as a cut-off for historical analysis has largely to do with analysing Singapore from the time it became an independent state in 1965. This arbitrary decade chosen is in no way suggesting that the majority-Chinese population has not already been a phenomenon prior to the 1960s. The choice of word “Chinese” is also for the purposes of easier discussion in terms of cultural similarities between Taiwan and Singapore; in itself, the category ‘Chinese’ is a massive simplification of the complexity behind this broad category, be it because of the choice of communities to socially distinguish themselves from the Mainland Chinese, or because of the intermarriages that took place to make the category multifaceted. Y. Y. Tsai, “Geneticising Ethnicity: A Study on the “Taiwan Bio-Bank,”” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal 4 (2010): 445, DOI: 10.1007/s12280-010-9146-x; S. H. Saw, “Population Trends in Singapore, 1819-1967,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 10, no. 1 (1969): 41, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20067730; “Population and Population Structure,” Department of Statistics Singapore, accessed 28 September, 2019, https://www.tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/publicfacing/createDataTable.action?refId=15689. 26R. J. Taormina, “Social harmony in decision making: costs and benefits in Chinese society,” Open Journal of Social Sciences 2 (2014): 130. DOI: 10.4236/jss.2014.25026; Y. H. Cho, & T. J. Kim, “Asian civic values: A cross-cultural comparison of three East Asian societies.” Asia-Pacific Education Researcher 22, no. 1 (2013): 21-31. DOI: 10.1007/s40299-012-0021-5.21-22. 27 G. Hofstede, “Country Comparison,” Hofstede-Insights, accessed on March 28, 2020, URL: https://www.hofstede- insights.com/country-comparison/singapore/.

exchange for harmony.28 These cultural similarities are important given how culture “plays a role not only through policy; but in its interactions with policy” (emphasis in original).29

Confucian collectivist values would serve to work in the favour of nations when they introduced authoritarian policies and military values into the society in the name of national security – a concept to be expounded upon in Chapter 1.

Economically, Taiwan and Singapore are also similar in that both economies are small in nature, yet successful in their economic liberalisation policies in the second half of the 20th century. This trait allowed both countries to acquire the status of “East Asian Tigers” by the

1990s.30 As export-oriented economies, where globalisation and global trade facilitate economic development in both nations, Allen Chun suggests that globalisation also meant that open economies like Singapore and Taiwan became increasingly influenced by global migration and flow. Culturally speaking, nations like Singapore and Taiwan had to reconsider how to protect or allow their national identities to be affected by these global influences.31

Methods & Procedures

This thesis analyses the local newspaper reports produced in Singapore and Taiwan between the 1990s and 2000s in order to compare the phenomenon of reporting on sexualized hazing among conscripted soldiers in each country. Analysing newspapers in this study is meaningful as they were not only the target of censorship policies up until the end of 2000s, but they were widely circulated at the local level and considered an important source of information

28In the original text, Hofstede describes Taiwan and Singapore as having a high “acceptance of hierarchy and centralisation of power,” where “people in these cities are less willing to challenge the authority in the presence of expected control, indirect communication, and selective information slow”; and high “collectivistic [trait] with a low score on individualism,” where “residents of these cities tend to be more group-oriented, more harmony-conscious, and more connection-focused.” “National cultural dimensions,” G. Hofstede (n.d.), quoted in Ran Wei, Ven-hwei Lo, Xiaoge Xu, Yi-Ning Katherine Chen & Guoliang Zhang, “Predicting Mobile News Use among College Students: the Role of Press Freedom in Four Asian Cities,” New Media & Society 16, no. 4 (2014): 640-641, DOI: 10.1177/1461444813487963. 29M. J. Budig, J. Misra, & I. Boeckmann, “The Motherhood Penalty in Cross-National Perspective: the Importance of Work- Family Policies and Cultural Attitudes,” Social Politics 19, no. 2 (2012): 188, DOI: 10.1093/sp/jxs006. 30Li, Capitalist, 20-52; E. A. Salvanathan & S. Selvanathan, “Similarities in the Consumption Patterns of the Five East Asian Tigers,” Asian Economic Journal 17, no. 3 (2003): 297-298, DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8381.2003.00188.x. 31A. Chun, “Discourses of Identity in the Changing Spaces of Public Culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore,” Theory, Culture & Society 13, no. 1 (1996): 69-73, DOI: 10.1177/026327696013001003.

on current affairs for countries in East and Southeast Asia.32 In Taiwan, newspaper circulation reached its peak in the early 1990s, with newspaper readership rates reaching 76% in the early

1990s before falling to about 46% by 2007.33 Similarly, in Singapore, newspapers were circulating at about 480,000 for Straits Times, the primary English daily in Singapore, and

160,000 for Lianhe Zaobao, the primary Mandarin Chinese daily in Singapore, in the 2000s.34

Because of its perceived credibility as compared to internet-based sources, the newspaper continued to influence opinions and decision-making in these societies.35 In the words of media scholar Cherian George, “societies get the newspapers they deserve;” through the newspaper, readers can appreciate what is important to the newspaper audience members, given their social, economic and political circumstances.36 To obtain the newspaper reports from the 1990s and

2000s relevant to this study, my research included a number of different newspaper archives, available either online or at designated libraries. Taiwanese and Singaporean newspapers published in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese were included for analyses in order to broaden the scope of analysis. This study is limited in its analysis, as the author’s language barriers prevent the inclusion of newspapers written in the languages of the other two major ethnic groups in Singapore, Malay and Indian.37 This study focuses on the following major newspapers in Singapore: Straits Times, New Paper, Business Times, Lianhe Zaobao (联合早报

), Lianhe Wanbao (联合晚报), and Xinmin Ribao (新民日报). While all of these newspapers are housed under the government-regulated Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), SPH’s monopoly of

32G. Rodan, Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia: Singapore and Malaysia (London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 43; C. George, Freedom from the Press (Singapore: NUS Press Pte Ltd, 2012), 3-4. 33 S. J. Ho & M. P. Sun, “Heterogenous Multi-Product Competition in Taiwan’s Newspaper Industry,” Asian Journal of Communication 18, no. 2 (2008): 104. DOI: 10.1080/01292980802021822. 34 B. C. Freeman, A. J. Duffy & X. Xu, “Machiavelli Meets Michelangelo: Newspaper Coverage of the Arts in Singapore,” SAGE Open 4 (2016): 5, DOI: 10.1177/2158244016645147. 35George, Freedom, 12-13. 36George, Freedom, 15-16. 37In Singapore, the major ethnicities include the Chinese (74.3%), the Malays (13.4%) and the Indians (9.0%); other ethnicities are collectively indicated as “Others,” making up 3.2% of the population. The percentages mentioned here are based upon the census published in 2018. “Population Trends 2018,” Department of Statistics Singapore, accessed on 22 September 2019. https://www.singstat.gov.sg/-/media/files/publications/population/population2018.pdf.

the Singapore press since the mid-1980s limits the choice of newspapers available for analysis.38

On top of that, Today, as one of the only functioning non-SPH papers, owned by the state’s

MediaCorp company, will also be included as part of the analysis.39 Taiwanese newspapers analysed for this study include Apple Daily Taiwan (台灣蘋果日報), China Times (中國時報),

United Daily (聯合報), Liberty Times (自由時報), and Central News Agency (中央日報). All five newspapers have been interchangeably listed as the few biggest news agencies, covering not only physical, but also digital platforms to reach out to the Taiwanese and even international audiences.40 Copies of the relevant Singaporean newspapers were obtained either from

NewspaperSG or from Newslink, the Singapore Press Holdings’ newspaper archive.41 Archived

Taiwanese newspapers prior to 2000 were obtained from the National Central Library located in

Taipei, Taiwan. Archived Taiwanese newspapers from 2000 onwards were available online via

WiseSearch (慧科搜索), an online Hong Kong newspaper database that provides access to newspapers published in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.42

A total of 65 different combinations of key terms has been included for the purposes of the search, which included topics relating to bullying and hazing, bullying and hazing in the military, sexuality in the military, sexual behaviours and sexual offences in the military.43

38S. F. Sim, “Obliterating the Political: One-Party Ideological Dominance and the Perosnalization of News in Singapore21,” Journalism Studies 7, no. 4 (2006): 579, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700600758009. 39George, Freedom, xi-xiii. 40J. F. Copper, Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? (Colorado: Westview Press, 2013): 47-49; J. Damm, “Politics and the Media,” in Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Taiwan, by G. Schubert (ed.)(London: Routledge, 2016): 188-191. 41Newspapers published by the Singapore Press Holdings can only be viewed at the National Library in Singapore; the primary source documents were accessed via NewspaperSG from the National Library itself. “NewspaperSG,” National Library Board, accessed on 22 September 2019. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/. 42WiseSearch itself broadly provides access to newspapers since 1979; however, in this author’s personal experience, WiseSearch was only able to provide access to specifically Taiwanese newspapers that were published from 2000 onwards. “WiseSearch User Guide,” LexisNexis, accessed on 22 September 2019. https://www.lexisnexis.com/bis-user- information/docs/WiseSearch_userguide.pdf. 43Key terms employed for the search included National Service, Sexualised Hazing, Sexualised Ragging, Sexualised Bullying, Hazing, Bullying, Ragging, Blanket Party, Mango, Taupok, National Service AND Homosexual, National Service AND Gay, National Service AND Molestation, National Service AND Outrage of Modesty, National Service AND Indecency, 黑整, 霸凌, 军人 AND 非礼, 黑整, 老兵欺負新兵,霸凌, 軍中菜鳥, 欺凌, 役男, 整人, 凌虐, 阿兵哥,兵營 AND 性侵, 學校/職場霸凌, 軍中施暴, 兵役施暴, 役男施暴, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 性交, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 口交, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 自殺, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 嘿咻, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 管教, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 欺負, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 凌虐, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 欺凌, 軍中 AND 陋習, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 施虐, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 性虐, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 強制猥褻, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 喇舌, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 舌吻, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 做愛, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 指奸, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 強奸, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND

Newspapers published from 1990 to 2009 were all included in the search. A total of 68

Singaporean news articles and 596 Taiwanese news articles were included in the analysis, of which 25 Singaporean news articles and 92 Taiwanese news articles discussed matters relating to the military. Given the monopoly of the information industry in each of these countries, as well as the focus on what “sells” (to be elaborated in our later chapters), depending solely on the newspaper will not be sufficient for us to provide a detailed picture of what was happening in both Singaporean and Taiwanese society. Other primary sources will also be used to supplement the newspaper sources, especially when secondary sources are unavailable to provide further information on the phenomenon.44 Theoretical approaches adopted from the field of

Masculinities Studies will be used for analysing the newspaper articles. More information on the relevance of the theoretical approach will be elaborated in Chapter 1.

This thesis argues that the liberalisation of Taiwanese society allowed for the greater openness in the reporting of hazing in the military, in contrast to the Singaporean media and society, which remained relatively quiet about the issue throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Both societies saw increased information flow and, consequently, increased reporting of sexualised hazing in newspapers in the post-AFC environment and with the growth of the Internet. The liberalisation of Taiwanese society resulted in media platforms tapping into these information flows to produce more sensationalised news, while the Singaporean society worked to verify the news from a more credible standpoint. Furthermore, changing attitudes towards topics of gender and sexuality resulted in different levels of willingness to discuss the controversies behind sexualised hazing activities in the military in Taiwan and Singapore. Lastly, the changing importance of the military in the Taiwanese and Singaporean societies resulted in differences in

強姦, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 阴茎, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 裸體/裸身, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 阴毛, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 生殖器, 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 體液,阿兵哥/軍營/兵役 AND 性器,同性戀 AND 阿兵哥/軍營/兵役, 同志 AND 阿兵哥/役男/兵役, 打手槍 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 打飛機 AND 阿兵哥兵役/軍營, 四腳獸 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 掉肥皂 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 啪啪啪 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 情趣用品 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 健慰器 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營, 阿鲁巴 AND 阿兵哥/兵役/軍營. 44Oral history interviews are obtained as part of existing database collections.

willingness to talk about cultures within the military, including sexualised hazing activities, as part of a country’s national security concerns. In the first chapter, this thesis will review some of the extant literature, discussing sexualised hazing as well as concepts of East Asian and militarised masculinities. In this chapter, a connection can be drawn among the three concepts in order to understand why sexualised hazing may specifically occur in the Singaporean and

Taiwanese context, and even more so in the military itself. Chapter 2 explores the social situation in Taiwan, considering the role of media in the society. This chapter will further illustrate the media’s position in reporting on sexualised hazing in the 1990s and 2000s broadly, before considering how conscription, as well as sexualised hazing, during conscription are represented in the Taiwanese media. The same approach will be adopted in Chapter 3 vis-à-vis Singapore and its media representation of sexualised hazing. Chapter 4 will compare the media’s representation of sexualised hazing in Taiwan and Singapore, and consider the regional and social reasons behind the similarities and differences in these representations. The conclusion will explore the significance of these similarities and differences, before suggesting future direction in expanding the research given its importance as a topic.

Chapter 1

Historiography

In 2007, sociologist Insook Kwon and her team published an article focusing on the prevalence of sexual violence in the South Korean conscript military.1 The sociological research found that 15.4% of conscripted South Korean male respondents indicated having been victimized, and 24.7% had witnessed these acts of sexual violence in one form or another.2 The research was significant not just in providing insights as to the frequency of sexual violence occurring within South Korean military. To date, it is also the only piece of research that directly tackles the topic of unwanted sexualized interactions between men in a Confucian, East Asian conscript military, despite it being written twelve years ago and the fact that case studies continue to appear in newspaper reports. In this chapter, secondary literature regarding sexualized hazing, East Asian masculinities, and militarised masculinities will be addressed, in order to consider why sexualised hazing may occur in East Asian conscript militaries. The chapter will also consider literature regarding media reporting in East Asian countries in order to investigate why these phenomena may rarely appear in newspapers, and why this thesis is of significance in contributing to the broader literature about sexualised hazing in history.

To start, sociologist Raewyn Connell’s research focusing on masculinities have acknowledged the need to situate discussions of masculinities within cultural and historical contexts.3 Masculinity scholars Kam Louie and Louise Edwards constructed the notion of “wen- wu” to define Confucian masculinities in 1994, suggesting that conceptualising East Asian masculinities as a “civil-martial” paradigm where men seek to perfect both elements is more

1I. Kwon, D. O. Lee, E. Kim, and H. Y. Kim, “Sexual Violence among Men in the Military in South Korea,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 22, no. 8 (2007): 1024-1042. 2Kwon, Lee, Kim and Kim, “Sexual Violence in South Korea,” 1028. 3R.W. Connell, “Masculinities and Globalisation,” Men and Masculinities 1, no. 1 (1998): 3-23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X98001001001; R.W. Connell & J. W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the concept,” Gender and Society 19 (2005): 829–59. DOI:10.1177/0891243205278639.

appropriate.4 The “wen-wu” construct was later adopted by most scholars when discussing

Confucian communities.5 While the concept of “wen-wu” has evolved to adapt with time, some key elements remained unchanged: on top of familial and financial success as the ideal state, the concept of crudeness (culu) – exemplified by the three Fs of “fighting, fucking, and football (or any other sport)” – continue defining the interactions of East Asian me.6 These interactions are also shaped by “(1) compulsory heterosexuality, (2) misogyny, and (3) homophobia.”7

Sexualised hazing may be seen as an act of doing gender, or in this context, doing or performing East Asian masculinity.8 At each stage of life, Taiwanese and Singaporean men need to prove themselves in order to uphold their masculinity: in school, in the military, and then at work.9 Interestingly, some academics argue that the homophobic notion of East Asian masculinity has engendered a homoerotic, phallocentric culture of interaction amongst men.10

Given social conventions, the engagement of the penis becomes an activity in which only men can engage with one another, and these sexual games, talk, and aggression become an exclusive

4The “wen-wu” (文武) paradigm is contrasted against the “yin-yang” (陰陽) binary, the latter which suggests that femininity and masculinity are two polar opposites and men should seek to deviate from femininity in order to achieve masculinity. The “wen-wu” paradigm challenges that as it suggests that “wen” (the scholar), while not necessarily acquiring the physical strength (the “wu”) that is often associated with traditional “yin-yang” masculinity, is equally necessary in order to actually achieve the ideal masculinity conceptualized by East Asian societies. L. Kam & L. Edwards, “Chinese masculinity: Theorizing wen and wu,” East Asian History, 8 (1994): 139-145. URL: https://www.academia.edu/892144/Chinese_Masculinity_Theorizing_Wen_and_Wu. 5L. Kam, “Chinese masculinity studies in the twenty-first century: Westernizing, Easternizing and globalizing wen and wu,” NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 9, no. 1 (2014): 25-27, DOI: 10.1080/18902138.2014.892283; O. Bedford & S. L. Hwang, “Flower Drinking and Masculinity in Taiwan,” Journal of Sex Research, 48, 1 (2011): 82, DOI: 10.1080/00224490903230046; L. T. Lyons & M. Ford,“Defending the nation: Malay men’s experience of National Service in Singapore,” in Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia, eds. M. Ford and L. T. Lyons (London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2012), 141-142; Y. C. Kao & H.D. Bih, “Masculinity in Ambiguity: Constructing Taiwanese Masculine Identities between Great Powers,” in Masculinities in a Global Era, International and Cultural Psychology, ed. J. Gelfer (New York: Springer, 2013), 177-178. 6Y. L. Kuo(郭怡伶), “磨蹭的快感？- 阿魯巴的男子氣概建構 (A Pleasant Sensation from Rubbing - the Masculinity Construction of Aluba),” Masters Dissertation, National Taiwan University (2005). pp. 77-78. See also: H. D. Bih, “Pathways toward Progressive Gender Consciousness for Young Men in Taiwan,” in East Asian Men by X. Lin et al. (eds) (London, Palgrave: 2017), 245, DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-55634-9_14; S. Williams, L. T. Lyons, & M. Ford, “Homosociality and desire: charting Chinese Singaporean sex tourists’ online conversations,” in Men and Masculinities in Southeast Asia, eds. M. Ford & L. T. Lyons (London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2012), 69; W. Jankowiak & X. Li, “The Decline of the Chauvinistic Model of Chinese Masculinity: A Research Report,” Chinese Sociological Review 46, no. 4 (2014): 9-10, DOI: 10.2753/ CSA2162-0555460401. 7Kao & Bih, “Taiwanese Masculine Identities,” 182. 8C. West & D. Zimmerman, “Doing gender,” Gender and Society 1 (1987): 125–151; H. D. Bih & H. Huang, “Aluba and ‘high’ culture: adolescent male peer culture in play,” Gender and Education 24, no. 2 (2012): 155, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2011.602330. 9Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 73-76. 10Bih & Huang, “Aluba,” 155.

language of social bonding between men.11 This language is even more attractive given its direct engagement with the male genitalia – an opportunity to reinforce all parties’ masculinity.12

Sexualised hazing becomes a way to prove one’s masculinity; it also becomes a socially acceptable way for men to be ‘intimate’ with each other, given a lack of other mediums of emotional expression, be it through verbal or physical touch.

The concept of collectivism and consideration of social environments is also essential when conceptualising East Asian masculinities. Founded on the Five Cardinal Relationships, or

“wu-lun” (五倫關係), Confucian values are defined by the prioritising of social hierarchies and communal (i.e., family and community) interests.13 Given the existing culture of sexualized hazing, the sustenance of such a culture across the decades is very much built on each generation’s desire to conform to the existing rules of the collective, to remain part of the collective.14 To engage with the norm is to indicate one is a part of the group – males who disengage or are naturally excluded tend to be discriminated against.15 Men conform not only because they need to sustain their own image(s) of masculinity, but these acts of conformity can also be essential in terms of furthering an individual’s progression in their career or status in society in East Asian communities.16 Psychologists Olwen Bedford and Hwang Shu-ling highlight the need to focus on relationships and conform to social expectations in Taiwanese contexts, even if this entails participating in social circumstances that may involve elements of sex.17 These same values cross over from civilian society to military institutions, helping to

11Kao & Bih, “Taiwanese Masculine Identities,” 176. 12Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 76-77, 84; Bih & Huang, “Aluba,” 152-153. 13Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 83. 14Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,”12. 15Bih & Huang, “Aluba,” 155. 16Kao & Bih, “Taiwanese Masculine Identities,” 245-246. 17Bedford & Hwang focuses the discussion on flower-drinking, a phenomenon where Taiwanese businessmen may visit hostess clubs together as a form of company bonding initiative. Bedford & Hwang, “Flower Drinking,” 90-91.

explain why sexualized hazing activities may continue from the civilian society into military communities, and vice versa.18

Besides Kwon et al.’s example of South Korea, sexualised hazing seems to pervade other

East Asian communities as well. In Hong Kong, students engage in the act of “Happy Corner,” in which they carry an individual with his legs opened wide to smash against a hard object or a corner.19 Similarly, in Mainland China, activities with various names (e.g., “Mozhu,” translated as “rubbing against a pole”) exist, entailing some form of infliction of pain in the genitalia for the male victim.20 Later, this thesis will also explore similar activities in Taiwanese and Singaporean societies outside the military. The prevalence of these phenomena suggests a certain similarity amongst societies embedded with Confucian values, and East Asian masculinity as a concept seems to appropriately explain why these activities specifically occur in communities where

Confucian values prevail.

Militarism and conscription have been argued to influence local traits of masculinity.21

Defined by notions of “militarism, masculinity, and sexuality,” hegemonic Confucian militarized masculinity further stresses creating a sense of brotherhood and belonging alongside adhering to the social hierarchy employed in the military.22 The notion of Confucian collectivism is further accentuated in this context. Termed by Kao as having “坎站 (kham-cham),” conscripted men in the military are expected to prove themselves to the collective that they are worthy of the support

18A. L. Bjørnstad & P. Ulleberg, “Is established knowledge about cross-cultural differences in individualism–collectivism not applicable to the military? A multi-method study of cross-cultural differences in behavior,” Military Psychology 29, no. 6 (2017): 485, DOI: 10.1037/mil0000186. 19Kuo, Pleasant Sensation, 34-35. 20Terms for describing sexualised hazing activities include 「磨柱」、「鉅人」、「坐飛機」. Kuo, Pleasant Sensation, 34-35. 21P. Higate & J. Hopton, “War, Militarism and Masculinities,” in Handbook of Studies on Men & Masculinities, eds. M. Kimmel, J. Hearn & R. W. Connell (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing, 2005), 443-444; R. Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony: Military, Men, and Constructing a Hegemonic Masculinity,” The Journal of Men’s Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 180, DOI: 10.3149/jms.1802.179; Y. C. Kao, “Doing Soldier as a Male Ritual: A Study of the Service Process of Conscripted Soldiers’ Masculinities in Taiwan (2000–2006),” Masters Thesis, National Taiwan University (July 2006), 11. 22Y. C. Kao, “Weapons of the Weak Soldiers: Military Masculinity and Embodied Resistance in Taiwanese Conscription,” In East Asian Men by X. Lin & C. Haywood (London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 200-203; Lyons & Ford, “Defending the nation,” 139; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing national service: the cultural reproduction of masculinities and militarization of male citizenship in Singapore,” Journal of Gender Studies 28, no. 6 (2019): 691, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2019.1604329.

and camaraderie offered by their colleagues.23 This notion of ‘we-ness’ becomes critical for the survival of men during their conscription in both the Singaporean and Taiwanese societies.24

In both Singapore and Taiwan, conscription is seen as crucial, given the perception of military service as part of “growing up” to become a man.25 This process allows for a critical amount of time to be dedicated for men in society to be inculcated with and eventually to embody the values of militarized masculinity.26 As vulnerable nations facing constant regional threats (as introduced in the Introduction), the crisis mentality (shaped by the belief that the people need to always be ready should they ever be invaded or attacked) adopted by

Singaporeans and Taiwanese societies further embeds traits of militarized attitudes into the masculinities that develop in both societies. Resulting from the “double castration” (racial and national castration), this crisis mentality has been preached onto citizens alongside the mandatory conscription service, creating the militarized attitudes adopted by both societies.27

Sexualised interactions in these Confucian conscript militaries are advanced as men use the idea of sex to either break routines, to elaborate on their expression of masculinities, or simply to reclaim freedom over the autonomy of their bodies, at a time when their bodies are bonded to the nation.28 In a suppressed and repetitive environment like the military, these sexualised interactions – involving sexual jokes, games, acts and hazing activities - act as a common platform for individuals to communicate, create camaraderie, and evince pleasure for

23Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 138-140. 24Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 147. 25Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 4, 23; A. Chong & S. Chan, “Militarizing civilians in Singapore: Preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism,” The Pacific Review 30, no. 3 (2017): 372; Kao & Bih, “Taiwanese Masculine Identities,” 180-181. 26Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 22-23; 49; 99-101; 107. 27Used by Kao & Bih, the notion of the “double castration” refers to the idea of racial and national castration faced by Taiwan given how they are not identified in the international political arena as an independent nation; at the same time, racially, they are seen as a subaltern community as compared to hegemonic races like the White communities overseas. I employ this same terminology on Singapore as well given that the same national castration may arguably be used given the size of the country and the continual threats the country face due to the animosity they face by their regional or even by the international community. Kao & Bih, “Taiwanese Masculine Identities,” 177-178. See also, Chong & Chan, “Militarising Singapore,” 366-367, and J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 694-695. 28Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 102-103, 111-112, 153-154,156, 212-213.

and amongst themselves.29 The ability to engage with this sexualised culture would become essential to prove one’s “kham-chan.” In fact, this collective appreciation for sexualised exchanges amongst men in conscript societies carries itself even after conscription where “civil- military cross-fertilisation” takes place: militarised language peppers sexual conversations in these societies even after men complete their conscription.30

Combined with the acceptance of hazing practices in the military broadly, sexualized hazing practices are arguably normalized in the context of Confucian conscript societies. Within the military context, masculinity continues to be used to justify hazing practices in the military.

Researchers across the disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences argue that hazing, as part of the military experience, is a necessary procedure for boys to transform into men.31 Hazing in the military is also further exacerbated by how isolating the social context of the military is, as the confined environment prevents hazed soldiers in the institution to lodge a complaint without facing backlash in one way or another.32 Coupled with the hopes of expressing their masculinity through the hazing activities, researchers argue that hazing activities evolve to take on a more sexually violent slant, explaining the normalisation of sexualized hazing in militaries that currently takes place.33

Notions of militarized Confucian masculinities are further reproduced through media stereotypes, as militaries are represented as idealized heterosexual masculine environments.34 In

Confucian conscript societies, the media participates in the portrayal of masculinity and

29H. Cervinkova, “Time to waste: Notes on the culture of the enlisted in the professionalising Czech military,” Dedovschina: from Military to Society, no. 1 (2004): 1-10, URL: https://journals.openedition.org/pipss/236; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 102- 103, 111-112, 153-154, 156, 169-171, 184-185, 212-213. 30Williams, Lyons & Ford elaborates on how military imageries, language, and even military-like hierarchy is used on online platforms discussing sexual exchanges in Singapore. Williams, Lyons & Ford, “Homosociality and desire,” 71-73, 75-76, 77, 80-81. 31Kwon, Lee, Kim and Kim, “Sexual Violence in South Korea,” 1027, 1035-1036; A. F. McCoy, “Same Banana”: Hazing and honor at the Philippine Military Academy,” The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 3 (1995): 696, DOI: 10.2307/2059448. 32K. Østvik & F. Rudmin, “Bullying and hazing among Norwegian Army soldiers: two studies of prevalence, context, and cognition.” Military Psychology 13, no.1 (2001): 19, DOI: 10.1207/S15327876MP1301_02. 33Kwon, Lee, Kim and Kim, “Sexual Violence in South Korea,” 1035-1040; R. Y. Abdulrehman, “The Cycle of Abuse in Sport Hazing: is it Simply a Case of Boys being Boys?” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2006, 7-10. 34J. R. Macnamara, Media and Male Identity: the Making and Remaking of Men (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 79- 80, 136.

‘becoming a man’ based on whether one has completed conscription; becoming a ‘good man’ further entails displaying filial piety, loyalty, and reverence for elders.35 Sexualized hazing in

East Asian conscript militaries challenges the images that the media presents, as it suggests a glitch in the military system when trying to inculcate these conscripts with core values embedded in Confucian militarized masculinity. When reported by the media, these incidences were portrayed on media platforms as surprising, given the perceived rarity of such circumstances; they were also often seen as problems extending from poor institutional discipline as well as situations of disgust related to the prevalence of perceived ‘homosexual’ interaction amongst men.36

These pristine images of men in militaries are further exacerbated by nationalist discourses and security concerns with respect to media reporting of happenings in militaries.

Scholars have argued that nationalism is often based upon hegemonic masculinity discourses, rendering alternatives invisible.37 The military, in this context, serves as a platform to further a nationalist agenda that both is fostered by and also reinforces these notions of hetero-masculine behaviour.38 Furthermore, legal infrastructures often prioritise national security and military interests over media freedom in conscript societies, given the perceived constant threat that these nations face.39 The focus on national security ensures that information regarding what happens in

35Y. Choi, “Media Construction of Korean Transnational Sporting Masculinities,” (Doctoral Dissertation, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro 2015), 97, 102-103. 36I. Kwon, “Masculinity and Male-on-Male Sexual Violence in the Military: Focusing on the Absence of the Issue,” in Militarised Currents, by S. Shigematsu & K. L. Camacho (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 223-224. 37S. Moon, “Trouble with Conscription, Entertaining Soldiers: Popular Culture and the Politics of Militarised Masculinity in South Korea,” Men and Masculinities 8, no. 1 (2005): 86. DOI: 10.1177/1097184X04268800 38Yeo describes how the media today basically presents “[t]he images [of conscription] constructed and circulated in the media [as] of the patriotic hero, the cowardice traitor, and the redeemed shirker, provid[ing] reference points not only for local or current understandings of militarised entertainment, nationalism, masculinity, public opinion formation, and policy decision-making, but also display wider ‘shared cultural codes’…” While situated in South Korea, Yeo’s description very much applies well to Taiwan and Singapore pertaining to their media portrayal of conscription as well. Y. Yeo, “The good, the bad, and the forgiven: the media spectacle of South Korean male celebrities’ compulsory military service,” Media, War & Conflict 10, no. 3 (2017): 307-308. 39Laws set in place include the National Mobilisation Law and the Publication Law in Taiwan and Essential Information (Control of Publications and Safeguarding of Information) Regulations, 1966 law in Singapore, where Regulation 6 “prohibits members of the armed forces from communicating, divulging or disclosing to the press, which is forbidden to print stories discrediting the military or discussing grievances against individual serviceman.” G. D. Rawnsley, “Treading a Fine Line: Democratisiation and the Media in Taiwan,” Parliamentary Affairs 57, no. 1 (2004): 210. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsh017; G. D. Rawnsley & M. Y. T. Rawnsley, “The Media in Taiwan: Change and Continuity,”

the military, and even the bandwidth given to the media, is limited in terms of what can be published.40 While the changing of laws over time and the technological advances of the Internet in both societies amplified the liberty news media had in reporting sexualized hazing occurrences, these nationalist agenda and security concerns may explain why a culture of sexualized hazing still may be left unreported or underreported in the socio-political context of

Taiwan and Singapore. Intentionally or unintentionally, sexualized hazing, especially when framed as sexual assault amongst men is a threat to masculinity and nationalism. When exposed as part of ongoing military activities, it might also be perceived as a threat to national security, and as such, may not be considered the most suitable for media reporting.41

Literature on sexualised hazing globally has been limited but available; even in countries like the Philippines which does not identify as closely with Confucianism, sexualised hazing has occurred within their militaries.42 Yet, the literature related to the theme of sexualised hazing in

East Asian conscript militaries, as well as the media reporting of it, is extremely scarce despite

Confucianism potentially having an impact on the presentation of sexualised hazing in the military. In order to present a coherent picture of how the subject has been treated by researchers, it is necessary to draw from several interrelated fields. While this thesis focuses on using a historical lens to reflect on the social history behind the phenomenon in both Taiwan and

Singapore (focusing on the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the development of the socio-cultural phenomenon), the research presented in this chapter spans a variety of disciplinary frameworks, including sociology, social psychology, gender studies, and cultural studies. These different

in What Has Changed?: Taiwan Before and After the Change in Ruling Parties, eds. D. Fell, H. Klöter & B. Y. Chang (Wiesbaden, Germany: Otto Harassowitz Verlag, 2006), 227; F. T. Seow, The Media Enthralled: Singapore Revisited (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 213, 229. 40Rawnsley, “Treading,” 210; Rawnsley & Rawnsley, “Media Taiwan,” 227; Seow, Media Singapore, 213, 229. 41Given that this thesis focuses on how the phenomenon unfolded and was represented in society, this chapter has chosen to not discuss the morality behind acts of sexuality hazing. Some literature has chosen to conceptualise it as a form of sexual assault, while others have framed it more as a collective, fun activity. Interested readers may consider reading Kuo, Pleasant Sensation, 67-68; 72, 86; and Bih & Huang, “Aluba,” 155. 42 A. F. McCoy, “Same Banana”: Hazing and honor at the Philippine Military Academy,” The Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 3 (1995): 696, DOI: 10.2307/2059448.

perspectives have each offered relevant theories that help account for the historical phenomenon of sexualised hazing which took place during the 1990s and 2000s. This thesis methodologically combines comparative media history with discourse analysis in order to understand how media altered social understandings of this phenomenon in two comparable contexts. These considerations are important, as the values and ‘habitus’ Taiwanese and Singaporean men adopt as part of the inculcation of Confucian militarised masculinity are brought into their lives back in the mainstream society after these men complete conscription.43

Given this background in research, this thesis seeks to address the following research questions: 1) to what extent were Taiwanese and Singaporean news agencies able to talk about the acts of sexualised hazing; 2) how did each country’s news agencies deal with the controversial subject of sexualised hazing in the military, particularly with respect to other considerations in reporting on military service; and 3) how did Taiwanese and Singaporean news agencies identify these acts and how did they narrate the problem to their respective audiences?

43Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 88-89, Chong & Chan, “Militarising Singapore,” 367; Hinojosa, “Doing Hegemony,” 183-184.

Chapter 2

Taiwan: From A Bullying Issue, to a Source of Entertainment and Gossip

林建璋的遭遇更滑稽，穿著迷彩軍服被一群士官捆綁在連集合場外的樹幹上，用一

根棍子插著屁股。大夥還不過癮，更拿著清洗火砲用的噴水槍，以強力水柱狂噴

林，玩得不亦樂乎，乍看相片，令人以為軍中又有不當管教的凌虐事件，但相片中

被整慘的「苦主」卻笑得很開心，有人甚至對鏡頭比出勝利手勢。 … 阿兵哥們玩

得正瘋時，被連長董道生上尉發現後馬上製止，且下令全副武裝到集合場罰站半小

時，但董當時未向上反映。直到被同單位的下士許銘修於去年十一月底退伍後，張

貼在網路讓人點閱，震驚國防部，立刻組成專案小組調查。 [Lin Jian-chang’s fate was even more ludicrous, wearing his (camouflage) uniform and getting tied up on a tree

by a group of soldiers at the assembly area, with a stick inserted into his buttocks. Not

satisfied, the group even took a water hose intended for washing the artillery cannons,

turning the water hose to its full blast to spray at Lin while having the time of their lives.

If one just looks at the photo, they will think that this was another case of bullying as a

result of poor discipline in the military, however the so-called victim in the photo was smiling radiantly, and the photo even included someone putting up a victory hand sign to

the camera… Right when the soldiers were having the time of their lives, they were

immediately stopped when Commander Dong Dao-sheng punished the soldiers by forcing them to stand outside at the assembly area in full battle order for half an hour, yet

at the time Dong did not report this incident to the higher management. The Ministry of

National Defence was not alerted to this incident until Corporal Hsu Ming-hsiu, of the

same unit, posted the photo online after completing his conscription in November of last

year, and a special task force was created to investigate the incident.]

-Apple Daily Taiwan, 6 April 20051

Lin’s experience of being sexually hazed – and allegedly enjoying it – was not the only case reported in the military by the print media. Since the 1990s, the Taiwanese news media has been reporting about similar incidences, albeit in vaguer terms. Why was sexualised hazing such a common phenomenon in Taiwan? The prevalence of sexualised hazing even in schooling environments, suggest that this practice was a culture that was embedded within the Taiwanese society, military and non-military, at least by the 1990s and 2000s. These cases seemed to have been reported increasingly in the 2000s as a result of the growth of the Internet and the increasingly competitive market for newspaper agencies. The introduction of Apple Daily

Taiwan in 2003 reformed the way newspapers were written in Taiwan. With the changing socio- political climate in Taiwan from the 1990s to the 2000s, including the changes in media laws as well as the reduced role of conscription and the military in Taiwan, newspaper reporting of sexualised hazing in the military liberalised and changed from being described as an act of bullying, to an embedded complex culture that stirred gossip in the Taiwanese society.

Taiwan’s History: A Brief Background

Prior to the influx of “Han Chinese” people into the region, Taiwan used to be a land made up of primarily Aboriginal people of Malay-Polynesian origins.2 It was during the Dutch colonisation in the 1600s when Chinese of Fujian and Hakka descent moved from Mainland

China to Taiwan to escape the civil war going on, so much so that the Chinese made up the

1 Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Xiaobing Aluba Shaojiang Diuguan Qing Tuiwu Fengkuang Zhaopian Guofang Bu Zhenjing 小兵阿魯巴少將丟官慶退伍瘋狂照片上網國防部震驚 (Soldier Aluba-ed, Major General Lost His Position, Photo of Crazy Celebration (of Dischargement) Uploaded Online, and Alerted the Ministry Of National Defense),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), April 6, 2005, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 2C. Clark, “Taiwan in the 1990s: Moving Ahead or Back to the Future?” In China Briefing, eds. J. D. White and W. A. Joseph (New York: Routledge, 1997), 197-198.

majority of the population.3 Taiwan, then known as Formosa, was handed over by the Dutch to the Qing Dynasty after Koxinga’s victory in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century, before being lost to Japan again in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War.4 Taiwan only officially returned to China politically after World War II; however, the time under Japanese rule in fact helped facilitate the development of Taiwanese national consciousness.5

In the post-World War II climate, Taiwan was charged with animosity against the

Mainland Chinese as the Taiwanese land became a refuge for the deposed Kuomintang and its community of supporters coming from Mainland China.6 In an attempt to frame Communism and the incumbent Mainland Chinese government, rather than the Kuomintang, as the enemy, the

National Government of Taiwan established the conscription law with the hopes of generating a sense of nationalism amongst the Taiwanese people.7 Sustained for over 60 years, the Act of

Military Service System Law states that men who were between the age of 18 and 36 were obliged to serve one to two years of military service, although the year of service can be deferred for reasons such as higher education.8 At least twenty-four batches of men were conscripted annually, and this process was ingrained in the society as part of the process of growing up and becoming a man.9 Up until the end of 2009, conscription continued acting as an important part of

Taiwanese men’s identity.10

3 K. Yao, “Two Rivals on an Island of Sugar: the Sugar Trade of the VOC and Overseas Chinese in Formosa in the Seventeenth Century,” in Around and About Formosa: Essays in honour of Professor Ts’ao Yung-ho, ed. L. Blussé (Taipei: SMC Publishing Inc, 2003), 137. 4 Clark, “Taiwan in the 1990s,” 197-198; T. Andrade, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory,” Journal of World History 21, no. 4 (2010): 573-591, URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41060851. 5 B. N. Chow, “Strategic Ambiguity and Differentiation: Ethnic and Civic Nationalist Discourses in Taiwan from 1945 to the 1990s,” Ethnopolitics 9, no.2 (2010): 152-153, DOI: 10.1080/17449050903159901 6 Clark, “Taiwan in the 1990s,” 195-196; Chow, “Strategic Ambiguity,” 154. 7 Y. C. Kao, “Weapons of the Weak Soldiers: Military Masculinity and Embodied Resistance in Taiwanese Conscription,” In East Asian Men by X. Lin & C. Haywood (London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 202. 8 Act of Military System 2019 (ROC), article 3. 9 Y. C. Kao, “Doing Soldier as a Male Ritual: A Study of the Service Process of Conscripted Soldiers’ Masculinities in Taiwan (2000–2006),” Masters Thesis, National Taiwan University (July 2006), 3-4. 10Chow, “Strategic Ambiguity,” 154-155, 160-165; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 4-5.

Taiwanese Military as a Sexualised Environment

In different aspects of civilian society, sexualised interactions had been integrated into parts of daily interactions amongst Taiwanese men. Aluba (阿魯巴), also known as “pole fucking,” a practice of smashing boys’ genitals onto another object, such as trees or poles, became a shared experience amongst secondary school students since the 1960s; by the early

2000s, flower-drinking, a practice of drinking alcohol whilst engaging with sex workers, also developed as a part of Taiwanese culture in the professional scene.11 Similar attributes of sex and sexuality in daily interactions were brought over into the military system in the 20th and 21st century. The Taiwanese military is significant as a national institution as the Act of Military

Service System mandated for over 60 years for all men to be conscripted at the age of 18 unless valid reasons were provided for deferment.12 The legal implications of conscription meant that every Taiwanese man has to go through the military at a certain point of their life, and that involves having to experience the sexualised nature of the some of the ongoing activities in the institution.

Described by Pei as “walking penises (一根根會走路的陰莖),” Taiwanese men in the military coloured their languages with sexual vulgarities of varying length (e.g., “幹你娘臭雞巴

,” which refers to conducting indecencies towards an the other party’s mother). They also had military songs such as “I Have a Gun” parodied into sexual songs (“I have Two Guns,” where conscript soldiers referred to one “for killing” and one “for fun”).13 Sexual acts went as far as masturbating in military facilities and on equipment; pretend rape went on as jokes; conscript

11Bih and Huang, “Aluba,” 149; H. I. S. Yueh, “From Japanese Otaku to Taiwanese Zhainan: Understanding Transcultural Masculinity through a Cultural Term in Taiwan,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 12, no. 2 (2019): 114-115. DOI: 10.1080/17513057.2019.1569251; Y. L. Kuo (郭怡伶),“Mozeng de Kuaigan? - Aluba de Nanzi Qigai Jiangou 磨蹭的快感？- 阿魯巴的男子氣概建構 (Pleasant Sensation from Rubbing? The Masculinity Construction of Aluba),” (Masters Thesis, National Taiwan University, 2005), 33. 12Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 13-14. 13R. H. Hu, “Qualitative Analysis of the Soldiers’ Adaptation: Taking Seven Volunteers as an Example,” (Masters Thesis, National Pingtung University, 2001), 58; Kao, “Weapons,” 212-213; H. J. Pei, “Military Culture, Masculinity and Sexuality Oppression: The Experiences of Military Service of Gays in Taiwan,” (Masters Thesis, Shih Hsin University Taiwan, 2001), 136

soldiers were engaging in varying levels of sexual activities amongst themselves to satisfy their sexual desires.14 Such sexualisation and homoeroticism going on within the military environment was not contained within the physical environment of the military, but it also spilled into the online sphere.15 The pervasiveness of sexual attributes in the day-to-day interactions amongst

Taiwanese men coloured hazing activities as well, when hazing activities did take place.

Sexualised Hazing – from Campus to the Military Environment

While sexualised hazing needs to be explored in terms of its continuity across time in

Taiwanese society, it is also valuable to consider how sexualised hazing as a ritualistic practice was brought over into the conscript experience as a result of common experiences prior to conscription. Aluba as a phenomenon is worth further exploration: it not only acts as one of the few sexual interactions appearing in official records as having continuously been practiced since the mid-1900s, but the culture of aluba in Taiwan also acts as a precedent for sexualised hazing later into the military.16 Beyond the idea of inflicting pain on the genitals, aluba is an exclusively male bonding activity focused on the dramatised reactions displayed by the “alubaee.”17 It is significant to note that aluba – as a form of sexualised hazing – steered clear of associations with homosexuality, so much so that individuals who indicated enjoying the homoeroticism of aluba were shunned subsequently.18 Interestingly, this homophobic attitude – this unwillingness to recognise aluba as a sexualised, homoerotic act – sustained itself despite changing attitudes towards homosexuality. Growing social movements pushed for greater liberalisation of attitudes towards the Taiwanese Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transsexual-Queer (LGBTQ) community in the

1980s and 1990s, with civil registration of same-sex marriage even being legalised by 2008; yet

14Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 162, 168; Pei, “Military,” 154; Kao, “Weapons,” 214. 15Pei, “Military,” 115-116, 119-120. 16Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 33. 17Bih and Huang, “Aluba,” 151-152; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 44-45, 58. 18Bih and Huang, “Aluba,” 154.

homophobic attitudes vis-a-vis aluba continued.19 This refusal to associate with homosexuality embedded a ritual that almost all male Taiwanese students were expected to go through, creating a sustained social attitude amongst the young Taiwanese male population from the 1960s up until the 2000s.

While aluba remained one of the more classical examples of sexualised hazing in a campus setting, many other campus sexualised hazing activities were also noted in Kuo’s study:

(i) stripping off another man’s pants; (ii) catching the “chick” (touching the genitals of another male student); (iii) sandwiching another person; (iv) “hanging” (pulling another male student’s pants up to hurt his genitals); (v) “card-swiping” (involving swiping one’s hand up another male student’s rectum); (vi) “praying to Guanyin” (putting one’s palms together to stick up the rectum of another male student); (vii) pretending to have sex; (viii) “crushing the egg” (having a group of people pinch a single student’s genitals); and (ix) “stepping on a landmine” (one person lying on the ground while others step on his genitals).20 Similar to aluba, these games were bonding activities which involved students who were close to each other, and these activities were exclusively male-oriented.21 Both aluba and some of the other sexualised hazing/play activities

(e.g., pretend sex, pants stripping) were simply carried over into military traditions, where the activities were increased in scale.22

Interestingly, the military institution took a tougher stance against sexualised hazing activities like aluba than other institutions in civil society. The military explicitly prohibited the act of aluba and similar activities in the name of embarrassing the military institution at least as of 2006.23 Yet, sexualised hazing activities continued within the institution. Hierarchical

19M. S. Ho, “Taiwan’s Road to Marriage Equality: Politics of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage,” The China Quarterly 238 (2019): p. 482-503, DOI: 10.1017/S0305741018001765; D. T. S. Tang, D. Khor, and Y. C. Chen, “Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: a Comparative Study of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan,” The Sociological Review 68, no. 1 (2020): 196, 201, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038026119858222. 20Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 80-82. 21Bih and Huang, “Aluba,” 151-152; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 44-45, 58, 80-82. 22Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 162; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 82-83. 23Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 155.

structures of authority facilitated acts of sexualised hazing as a form of bullying by senior towards junior soldiers. Up until the 2000s, conscription was structured in terms of seniority: junior soldiers were expected to enter with fear for senior conscripts, and senior conscripts were given the ‘privilege’ to treat juniors however they wished, including abusing them. This abusive practice continued until junior soldiers acquired enough experience, before they held that same privilege towards a new batch of junior soldiers.24 This structure created a culture where soldiers expected to get their chance to bully their juniors eventually.25 A case study of such hierarchical sexualised hazing occurred at the Matsu Defence Command in 2003, where six senior soldiers shamed a recruit by stripping the recruit, sticking a foreign object up the recruit’s rectum, drawing on all over his body and his genitals before forcing the recruit to publicly masturbate.26

Even after the implementation of laws banning such bullying from taking place, sexualised hazing continued. In 2009, two senior soldiers at the Matsu Defense Command forced a recruit to make out and perform fellatio.27 The unwillingness amongst Taiwanese conscripts to forgo the practice of hierarchical abuse perpetuated sexualised hazing activities.

Even amongst those of the same ranks, soldiers were using sexualised hazing as a method to decide who belonged to the ‘in-groups,’ and to punish those who belonged to the ‘out-groups’.

Individuals who belonged in the in-groups were the ones who adopted common habits with the majority – people who smoked, drank, chewed on betel, who were rough, not feminine and were

24Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 50; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 58-59. 25K. H. Chin, “The Sexual Logic of Military Patriarchy Reproduction: The Experience of Military Service in Taiwan,” (Masters Thesis, National Tsinghua University, 1997), 45. 26United Daily 聯合報, “Bi Xinbing Dangzhong Ziwei Cheng Laobing Rufa Paozhi 逼新兵當眾自慰懲老兵如法炮製 (Forcing Fresh Recruits to Publicly Masturbate, Senior Soldiers were Punished in the Same Way),” 聯合報(United Daily), November 7, 2003. 27United Daily 聯合報, “Junfa Fangkuan 44xiang Weiyi Sixing sheng 2xiang Qiangjian Qiangjie deng Xiayue Erri qi Gaian Xingfa Chufa Fanghai Junji Zhizui Tiaoli ye Jiang Jiantao Feishu 軍法放寬 44 項唯一死刑剩 2 項強姦、搶劫等下月二日起改按刑法出發妨害軍機治罪條例也將檢討廢除 (The Military Legislation Relaxes 44 Laws with Death Penalty, with Only Rape and Robbery, as the 2 Laws that are still Permitted to Sentence the Death Penalty. The Second Day of Next Month, the Against Military Secret Act will also be Considered for Abolishment),” 聯合報 (United Daily), September 28, 2001, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Laobing bi Cainiao Koujiao Jinfa Guanjin Bi 老兵逼菜鳥口交僅罰關緊閉 (Senior Soldier Forces Recruit to Perform Fellatio Only Punished with Confinement),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), March 2, 2009, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019.

brave. 28 These individuals enjoyed the privilege of being protected from extreme forms of sexualised hazing; small sexual games like aluba and pants stripping were still engaged to facilitate bonding within the community. 29 Some individuals from out-groups voluntarily allowed their fellow soldiers to joke with them sexually to try and move into the in-groups. Non- heterosexual interviewees from ethnographic studies held in the 2000s indicated they did so by letting their colleagues get a little more intimate with them physically, or simply letting their colleagues watch them shower.30 In the military environment, where men continued dominating the setting, sexualised hazing became a tool to navigate between the in-groups and the out- groups in order to make the conscription experience a little more bearable.

People who were outcast included individuals who were comparatively more feminine, homosexual, or even those who were more educated.31 In this case, sexualised hazing took on a more extreme form: on a smaller scale, acts of sexual harassment might be conducted against individuals who were more feminine; more extreme cases could include making the victim masturbate individuals from the hegemonic group or even fellow comrades raping the victim.32

In Pei’s research, one of the interviewees spoke about how a man who self-identified as homosexual was gang-raped in the military, yet the victim of the event was unable to seek help because of the restricted nature of the environment itself, creating a situation in which individuals might be pushed to the brink of a mental breakdown.33 Little knowledge about what occurred within the confines of the military camp was shared up until the 1990s and 2000s.34

28Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 52; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 162; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 82-83. 29Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 52; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 162; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 82-83. 30Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 55; Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 155. 31While scientifically, it is not possible to claim that a person is “more homosexual,” the focus of this sentence is to emphasise on how the decision to outcast was often based on a comparative scale based on what the soldiers could observe, rather than what was in fact the reality. Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 49, 54-55; Pei, “Military,” 122, 143, 157. 32Hu, “Qualitative Analysis,” 54; Pei, “Military,” 137. 33Pei, “Military,” 139. 34It was not until Chin (1997), Pei (2001), Hu (2001), and Kao (2006)’s research did the academic audience gain insights into such practice and cultures of soldiers within the military. As will be later elaborated, even within the media, mentions of such occurrences often only occurred in the most extreme circumstances until the end of the 1990s, before things took a turn in the 2000s.

Beyond the malicious intent behind some acts of sexualised hazing within the military, for the most part, sexualised interactions amongst the conscripts in the military were often an extension of boredom and a need for entertainment. The growing sense of fatigue from the poor conditions, the low pay, and the belief that conscription was meaningless, made it such that the conscripts were often seeking ways to make their experience more eventful.35 Light sexualised hazing activities like aluba and people putting ointments on each other’s genitals became so commonplace that the military had to request newly conscripted soldiers to sign a contract saying they would not engage in such activities.36 Yet these activities continued at least up until the end of the 2000s. In 2009, a clip of two soldiers performing lewd acts towards one another wearing just underwear surfaced to the public, and this was only a month after another incident from the same year where two soldiers were found publicly performing fellatio for one another as a form of entertainment for their platoon mates.37 In a culture where camaraderie was prioritised and saboteurs were not forgiven, such practices were continually swept under the carpet.38

Reporting of Sexualised Hazing – in the Taiwanese Society and in the Military

Before analysing how sexualised hazing was reported, there is a need to understand the historical development of news media in Taiwan. From 1949 to the mid-1980s, the Kuomintang

(KMT) had militarised the media. A ban was imposed on newspaper media under which only information that passed through censorship checks could be shared.39 It was not until 1987 that

Taiwan de-militarised, and by January 1988, media bans were lifted with Chiang Ching-kuo’s

35Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 53. 36Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 155-156; Kuo, “Pleasant Sensation,” 82-83. 37Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “2Bing Xianshi Xiu Bujian Guan Zhizhi 2 兵鹹濕秀不見官制止 (2 Soldiers Performing Lewd Performances No Commanders Were Seen Stopping the Act),” 台灣蘋果日報(Apple Daily Taiwan), August 8, 2009, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 38Kao, “Doing Soldier,” 138-140. 39H. W. Hsiao, “Baozhi Fanzui Xinwen zhi Baodao Shoufa dui Yueting ren Renzhi yu Taidu zhi Yingxiang Yanjiu 報紙犯罪新聞之報導手法對閱聽人人知與態度之影響研究 (The Impact of How Crime News Are Reported in Newspapers),” (Masters thesis, National Taiwan University, 2005), 6-7; Y. Satō, “Taiwan’s Multidimensional Transformation in the 1990s: Introduction,” The Developing Economies, XL-3 (2002): 217, 219, DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-1049.2002.tb00913.x.; F. Yun, “Activists in a Changing Political Environment: A Microfoundational Study of Social Movements in Taiwan’s Democratic Transition, 1980s-1990s,” (Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University, 2000), 155.

attempt to promote increased freedom of speech; as a result, the newspaper media agency became increasingly commercialised.40 With the commercialisation of news agencies, sensationalism and partisanship also came to dominate the writings of newspaper media agencies into the 2000s.41 The growing sensationalisation of newspaper writing could also be seen vis-à- vis the topic of sexualised hazing at the turn of the millennium.

Bih and Huang neatly summarise how the media portrayed aluba in high schools:

Public awareness of aluba comes primarily through news reports. The 77 news entries

collected were divided into the following categories: (1) male film and television actors

playing aluba or recalling aluba experiences from high school; (2) boys suffering physical

injuries from playing aluba; (3) other news items related to various male genital injuries

by other causes, which then touch on the potential danger of playing aluba. The general

impression established by the media is that aluba is a violent game with a high risk of

genital injuries. Indeed, the outsiders seem to feel the alubaee’s pain (while the parents

are more concerned about their son’s ability to carry on the family line). However…

aluba is never performed with the intention to injure, and what injuries do occur tend to

result from the alubaer’s gripping the alubaee’s arms too tightly or from putting him

down too quickly afterward.42

Indeed, in a setting where minors were still deemed as a population to be protected, newspaper reports, at least in the recent decades, often focused on the dangers of sexualised hazing activities when they reported on the subject.

A similar phenomenon paralleled the reporting of sexualised hazing in the military in the

1990s and in the early-2000s. Amongst the thirteen articles found that indicated forms of

“hazing” taking place in the military in the 1990s, little description was given beyond that the

40Clark, “Taiwan in the 1990s,” 199; Yun, “Activists,” 155. 41Hsiao, “Impact,” 6-7. 42Bih and Huang, “Aluba,” 156-157.

victim of the hazing has died from (often) suicide, and investigations were being conducted to see if these hazing cases were due to traditions of senior soldiers bullying junior soldiers.43 Even into the early-2000s, only three other articles discussed cases of sexualised hazing, of which all the cases were described as cases of bullying, even if the cases were increasingly described in sexually graphic details. An article published by United Daily on December 8, 2001 described victim Lin Xuan-yi as having been bullied and tortured by his cohort mate, tied up to a bed to be beaten up, with someone putting rubbing ointment on his genitals, before forcing him to masturbate with a condom – a chain of incidents which his father supposedly claimed to have resulted in Lin developing schizophrenia.44 The portrayal of sexualised hazing then was still very much surrounding the dangers of the activities, albeit with significantly greater sexual and more graphic details than in the 1990s.

Yet, 2003 marked a significant shift in the reporting of sexualised hazing activities, with the introduction of a formidable competitor in the Taiwanese media industry: Apple Daily

Taiwan. Amongst the twelve articles written about sexualised hazing in the short span of seven years, seven were written by Apple Daily Taiwan, providing them a degree of autonomy to shape public discourse and opinion about sexualised hazing. Consequently, reports became more sensationalised. Sexual games were attacked for damaging the reputation of the military institution, and news reporters claimed to be disgusted by the choice to engage in these morally condemnable acts. Overall, conversations shifted away from discussions of sexualised hazing as a form of bullying, and a new focus was placed on the embarrassing nature of the sexualised form of exchange instead.

43An example would be as follows: United Daily 聯合報, “Cainiao Ruhe Suoju Shoujia qian Yuyao 菜鳥何所懼收假前仰藥 (Scared for Some Reason, Recruit Commits Suicide by Overdose Right Before the Holidays),” 聯合報 (United Daily), July 18, 1996. 44United Daily 聯合報, “ Yinan Yizao Lingnve Jiashu Cuhuan Gongdao Zhangguan Tanshi Linxuan Yi Tade Fuqin Pan Junfang Diaocha Zhenxiang 役男疑遭凌虐家屬促還公道長官探視林炫億他的父親盼軍方調查真相 (Conscript Suspected to be Bullied and Tortured Family Members call for Justice Commander Visits Lin Xuanyi and His Father Hopes for the Force to Seek Out the Truth),” 聯合報 (United Daily), 8 December, 2001, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019; Hsiao, “Impact,” 6-7.

One of the key changes that took place post-2003 would be the proliferation of knowledge regarding sexualised hazing activities on the Internet. Consequently, there was a rise in moral condemnation towards the acts themselves. Out of the twelve articles, five made reference to videos of aluba or fellatio or pretending to have sex that were uploaded online, which was how the public became aware of the cases. With the growing use of the Internet in

Taiwan, materials uploaded online became perfect sources for news media to tap for their next sensational news.45 And with emotional diction such as referring to the activities as ‘disgusting!’ and being a ‘complete embarrassment’, the news media shifted the focus away from the

‘bullying’ nature of sexualised hazing, instead attaching the activities to a morally condemnable tag.46

The other key changes that took place post-2003 was how the practice of sexualised hazing was increasingly associated with, and consequently, damaging to the reputation of the military. In an article posted on March 2, 2009, Apple Daily Taiwan reflected this phenomenon perfectly through their opening line: “National Army Sees Yet Another Sexual Scandal!”47 Lines like this worked well in terms of capturing the attention of the reader; unfortunately, such scandalising lines often came at the price of the armed forces’ reputation. In another article by

Apple Daily Taiwan on July 16, 2009, a councillor, during an interview with the reporter, had exclaimed at how military discipline no longer existed and that the public has lost all faith in the armed forces because of the reported case of two conscript soldiers performing fellatio upon one another publicly as a joke.48 Unlike previously, when sexualised hazing was written about as a

45W. Francis, “The Dissemination of the World-Wide Internet in Taiwan: A Social Perspective,” (paper presented at the Thirtieth Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Wailea, Hawaii, 7-10 January 1997), https://ieeexplore-ieee- org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=661579. 46“老兵逼菜鳥口交,”蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), March 2, 2009, WiseSearch; Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Junfang Yancha Xian Baise Kongbu 軍方嚴查掀「白色恐佈」(The Armed Forces Conduct a Strict Check Revealing “White Terror”),” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), April 6, 2005, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 47“老兵逼菜鳥口交,”台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), March 2, 2009, WiseSearch. 48Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Bukan Rumu Guojun gao Koujiao 40 Guanbing Weiguan 不堪入目國軍搞口角 40 官兵圍觀（Unbearable to look Conscripts Conduct Oral Sex 40 Other soldiers Surround to Watch）,” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), July 16, 2009, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019.

result of a bullying culture within the military, the military was now faulted for entirely failing to discipline their conscripts for engaging in such kind of fun.

Perhaps the most significant change in the sexualised hazing activity media discourse was the shift away from the notion that it was a form of bullying, instead focusing on how it was a collective experience that men enjoyed in the course of going through the military. News media outlets had begun acknowledging that these activities often occurred as part of traditions, for example on graduation celebrations or when one completes conscription.49 Apple Daily Taiwan provides an interview exchange which neatly discussed how the choice to perform fellatios between men publicly during conscription was not just entertaining; but, after conscription, these moments of sexual fun would also become the very memories that Taiwanese men would never forget.50 Such an alternative perspective had yet been considered until 2003, possibly due to prior censorship of the media or simply because of the conservative mindset towards sexualised hazing until then. The choice to recognise that sexualised hazing had already formed part of the conscription experience and culture seemed to suggest an acceptance of such a phenomenon, no matter how damaging or embarrassing it was for the military institution.

The growing willingness to embarrass the Taiwanese military coincided with the downfall of the Taiwanese conscript system, as lengths of conscription decreased from two years, to one year, to a short four months, with plans to abolish the system altogether.51 The changing media engagement with an overlooked, continuing phenomenon reflects the changing social experience in Taiwan. The Internet allowed sexualised hazing activities to become more publicly known, as conscripts uploaded clips of their acts in camp online. Growing liberalisation,

49“「白色恐佈」,” 台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), April 6, 2005, WiseSearch. 50Apple Daily Taiwan 台灣蘋果日報, “Renjian Yiyu: Xiaobing yan Koujiao Zhishi Nanren Yvle 人間異語：小兵演口角只是男人娛樂 (Odd Talk: Recruits performing Fellatio is Just Male Entertainment),”台灣蘋果日報 (Apple Daily Taiwan), July 25, 2009, WiseSearch, accessed on 30 September 2019. 51E. Setzekorn, “Military Reform in Taiwan: The Lafayette Scandal, National Defense Force and All-Volunteer Force,” American Journal of Chinese Studies 21, no. 1 (2014): 16-17. URL: http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=30h&AN=96114713&site=e host-live&scope=site.

sensationalism, and partisanship of media outlets resulted in agencies like Apple Daily Taiwan becoming less hesitant to deploy materials online and to dispense moral judgments towards these activities. Ironically, increased freedom of expression also allowed for discourses of sexualised hazing to be thought of as collective memories rather than simply points of embarrassment. The developing social phenomenon in Taiwan post-2003 allowed for complexities to develop when conceptualising sexualised hazing as an activity in the Taiwanese conscript militaries: sexualised hazing was no longer reported purely as an act of danger the way campus sexualised hazing activities were reported, nor was it reported as simply an extension of the hierarchical bullying by senior soldiers to junior recruits. With the changing societal climate in Taiwan from the 1990s to the 2000s, newspaper reporting of sexualised hazing in the military liberalised and changed from being a ‘bullying’ activity to an embarrassing, yet complex, cultural phenomenon in

Taiwanese society.

Chapter 3

Singapore: From Singular, Legal Concerns to a Bullying Culture Broadly

“A video of a Singapore civil Defence Force (SCDF) personnel being ragged by his

station mates in a toilet at a fire station has surfaced online, with the force promising

tough action against the men involved. The video shows the naked victim on the toilet

with his hands tied at the wrists with a rope while a group of four or five men ganged up

and taunted him. They were seen spraying water on him with a hose and rubbing shoe

polish all over his body with a brush. The video clip, which runs for just over a minute,

surfaced on YouTube but was taken off soon after. It later also popped up on an

American website www.liveleak.com... Early last year, a 19-year old firefighter filed a

police report claiming that he was verbally, physically and sexually abused by some of

his colleagues during a ragging session soon after he was posted to a fire station.”

-The Straits Times, 8 November 20081

The culture of sexualised hazing in the military began even before the investigations on the death of CPL Kok Yuen Chin in 2018 revealed some of these instances, as discussed in the introductory chapter. Sexualised hazing had taken place across Singapore even before independence in the 1960s, and these incidences continued into the 2000s. Yet these incidences were not reported because of media self-censorship as an extension of national security concerns, with media censorship only liberalising to a limited extent because of the development of the

Internet in the 2000s.

1The Straits Times, “Ragging Video: SCDF to Punish Those Involved,” The Straits Times, 8 Nov. 2008, p. 49.

Singapore's History: A Brief Background

Similar to Taiwan, until the influx of Chinese occurred, Singapore was made up of mainly communities of Malay-Polynesian origins; however, by the 1820s, migration resulted in the domination of the Chinese in Singapore.2 Described as a small island-state making up “no more than 26 square kilometres of land” at the Southeastern end of Asia, right at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, by the 21st century, Singapore was made up of 5 million residents with a demographic distribution of 74% Chinese and 14% Malays and Indians.3 This made Singapore one of the only Chinese-dominated states with a First World economy amongst a region made of mostly Malay states, also termed as the “Nusantara” region.4

Colonised by the British in 1918 and then temporarily occupied by the Japanese during

World War II, Singapore initially merged with Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia as an independent country in 1963.5 However, due to racial and political disputes, Malaysia requested

Singapore to separate in 1965, resulting in Singapore’s independence.6 Given Singapore’s history of separation as well as its multi-cultural dynamics, the Parliament of Singapore sought to create a sense of cohesion amongst its people. Firstly, on the civilian front, the Parliament passed the “Five Shared National Values” in 1991, including “Nation before community and society before self,” “Family as the basic unit of society,” “Community support and respect for the individual,” “Consensus, not conflict,” and “Racial and religious harmony.”7 These values would come to define governmental policies, and were not reviewed again until 2012 when the

2National Library Board, “Orang Laut/Sea Nomad,” HistorySG, National Library Board, 2014, accessed on February 22, 2020, URL: http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events/6ea56810-a501-40e7-a06f-09395b6646b4; K. Anderbeck, “The Malayic-speaking; Orang Laut Dialects and Directions for Research,” Wacana 14, no. 2 (2012): 265-312; S. S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013), 85-86. 3C. George, “Freedom from the Press,” (Singapore: NUS Press Pte Ltd, 2012), xi-xiii; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing national service: the cultural reproduction of masculinities and militarization of male citizenship in Singapore.” Journal of Gender Studies 28, no. 6 (2019): 687. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2019.1604329. 4J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 687. 5M. Lee, “Federation of Malaysia,” Singapore Infopedia, National Library Board, 2018, accesssed on February 22, 2020, URL: https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2019-07-15_170844.html. 6Lee, “Federation,” National Library Board; George, “Freedom,” xi-xiii. 7F. W. S. Tan & P. B. C. Lew, “The Role of the Singapore Armed Forces in Forging National Values, Image, and Identity,” Military Review (2017): 10.

Singaporean government decided to hold “Our Singapore Conversation” to have dialogues with its citizens to reconsider the relevance of these values.8

Secondly, the implementation of conscription became just as much a tool for national defence, as it was a method to instil national identity and cohesion amongst Singaporeans. The implementation of the 1967 National Service (Amendment) Bill in March 1967 meant that all

18-year-old male Singapore citizens and permanent residents would be conscripted for full-time

National Service (NS), and around 25,000 men would be absorbed into the ranks of the SAF yearly.9 While the stint that male Singaporeans were mandated to serve was eventually adjusted from 36 months down to 24 months, they still served about two years in a regimental unit, assigned to either the Singapore Armed Forces, where most people were deployed to serve, or to the Singapore Police Force or the Singapore Civil Defence Force.10 Even after the completion of full-time National Service, the enlistees would then take on the designation of operationally- ready National Servicemen (NSMen), and as such they could act as reservist manpower and be deployed in the event of a war.11 By 2005, “the SAF boasted a total mobilized strength of between 320,000 and 350,000” out of 3.38 million residents, with “nine in ten being national servicemen.”12 This uniform experience attempted to bridge the differences amongst

Singaporean communities and worked to reinforce the national values, image, and identity that

8Tan & Lew, “Forging National Values,” 10. 9T. Kwek, “(Trans)National Service: Reconfiguring Citizenship through Conscription in Singapore.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 92, no. 316 (2019): 68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2019.0005; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 687-688. 10 Within the Singapore Armed Forces, men had the chance of being deployed to the Singapore Army, the Republic of Singapore Air Force, or the Republic of Singapore Navy. Singaporean men had to serve their time even if they wanted to convert to another citizenship before they were allowed to renounce their Singaporean citizenship as part of the law. C. H. Leong, W. W. Yang, & J. Hong, “National Service: The Holy Grail in the Management of Social Diversity,” in Managing Diversity in Singapore Policies and Prospects, eds. M. Mathews and W. F. Chiang (London, United Kingdom: Imperial College Press, 2016), 303; A. Chong & S. Chan, “Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism,’ The Pacific Review 30, no. 3 (2017): 371. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2016.1249906; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 688. 11Leong, Yang & Hong, “National Service,” 303; Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 372. 12Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 372.

the Singaporean society attempted to represent, giving every male citizen a chance to embody these values at some point in their lives.13

In the early stages of independence, Singapore had concerns about national defence, given the global climate of the Cold War and coupled with its vulnerabilities as a human resource-oriented small island-city state. Singapore’s desire to implement conscription then almost seemed reasonable. Yet after 1991, Singapore continued finding new reasons to justify the continuation of conscription.14 In the 1990s and 2000s, these justifications came from the threat of being in Nusantara (i.e., surrounded by neighbouring Malay states).15 Not only were continued conflicts with Malaysia over water supplies and territorial disputes a source of tension, animosity continued coming from Indonesia as a result of the anti-Chinese sentiments and the post-Konfrontasi climate from 1965 (where the Indonesians celebrated the two marines who bombed the MacDonald House in Singapore in pursuit of nationalistic agenda).16In August 1991,

Malaysia and Indonesia conducted their largest bilateral exercise, Malindo Darsasa 3AB, right at the bordering state of Johor, having a paratrooper exercise on Singapore’s National Day itself

(on the 9 August), resulting in a full-scale mobilisation by the Singapore Armed Forces.17

Coupled with the growing fears of terrorism in the post-9/11 climate, these issues almost validated Singapore’s continued narrative of being in a position of vulnerability, henceforth justifying the continuation of the system of conscription on the island city-state.18

13Of course, just as much as this was a uniform (common) experience amongst the Singaporean men, this was as much a chance for Singaporean men to be put into uniform circumstances (with crew cuts and the prohibition of facial hair defining their experiences). J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 688; Tan & Lew, “Forging National Values,” 14-15. 14Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 366. 15Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 379-380. 16Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 379-380. 17Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 379-380. 18While these national security concerns continue to be true, some of the other issues of conscription of Singaporean men continue to be highlighted by scholars, such as how there is a disproportionate number of incidences (such as accidents) in contrast to the (lack of) military engagement by the Singapore Armed Forces to justify the continuation of conscription. Furthermore, with the sharing of information, people are realising the opportunity cost involved with the implementation of National Service whereby Singaporean men waste two prime years of their lives in exchange for the completion of mundane tasks where they see National Service as no more than a liability. For more information, refer to Chong & Chan, “Militarizing,” 366, 372-375.

Sexualised Hazing: When did it start?

Even prior to independence, hazing activities had already pervaded the Singapore society, although most reports had focused on the prevalence of such activities in the university campus settings. A couple of years after the return of the British post-WWII, there existed reports of the

University of Malaya in Singapore banning ragging activities on campus in 1950.19 Yet, by the end of the same decade, reports were published yet again informing of how these bans had been violated and senior students were ragging freshmen students once again.20

These traditions of hazing continued into independence, although these traditions seemed to have taken on a more dynamic slant. On one hand, more sexualised descriptions started appearing in reports discussing these hazing activities. In 1971, the now-defunct New Nation depicted how “[one student] was stripped the other night and made to perform humiliating tasks; another had to stand for three or four hours in the rain to ensure, I suppose, that he caught a cold.”21 Similarly, in 1977, the New Nation talked about how a student “witnessed 40 newcomers at the medical hostel being made to wear baby napkins, suck baby teats and roll plasticine.”22 On the other hand, the hazing culture seemed to have spread out of the university environment, into other campus settings. In 1979, reports of sexualised activities taking place in polytechnics involving stripping, bullying, and humiliating, were appearing and by the following year, the same valiant attempt at outlawing ragging in polytechnics were also being reported.23

19“Ragging” was used interchangeable with the word, “hazing” when describing activities that are often physically strenuous and humiliating for the victim. The Straits Times, “’Orientation’ for New Students,” The Straits Times, October 3, 1951, p. 5, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 20Singapore Standard, “Freshmen Get First Ragging,” Singapore Standard, October 4, 1959, p. 3, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019; Singapore Standard, “Bid to Rag Varsity ‘Freshies’ Fades Out,” Singapore Standard, May 21, 1959, p. 5, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 21New Nation, “Victims of Ragging,” New Nation, June 25, 1971, p. 8, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 22New Nation, “Recurring Problem on Campus,” New Nation, August 5, 1977, p. 8, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 23I. Ngoo, “Ragging makes a Comeback at Poly,” The Straits Times, May 23, 1979, p. 7. Retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019; The Straits Times, “Poly Tights Rules on Discipline,” The Straits TImes, September 24, 1980, p. 13, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019.

Interestingly, as more reports started appearing on discussions of sexualised hazing occurring in campus settings, more push-backs by students against punishments and regulations on ragging activities were also being reported. In 1971, over a hundred University of Singapore students protested against the punishment imposed on three university students for having been found guilty for participating in ragging activities.24 Such reports of push backs against punishments for ragging were unheard of prior to independence, reflecting how the culture and debate over hazing activities were becoming increasingly dynamic in the post-independence social environment.

Sexualised Hazing in the 1990s and 2000s: How did it develop?

By the 1990s, attempts at banning ragging activities continued.25 Yet sexualised hazing activities clearly persisted, as reflected by Wilfred Yeo’s article on The Straits Times.26 The scope of sexualised hazing expanded beyond the campus settings by the 2000s: in 2009, The

Straits Times reported about how an inmate at Changi prison was forced to “swallow human faeces,” “perform oral sex” and was even sodomised; Today also reported about how another inmate in the same prison was forced to perform fellatio and masturbate his fellow inmates.27

More concerning would be the expansion of the culture of sexualised hazing into a more vulnerable population: the secondary school, international school and Junior College population.28 In 2005, an initial analysis was conducted on students from these populations who had reportedly engaged in such activities on both the English and Mandarin dailies.29 This

24The Straits Times, “Students Protest against ‘Severe’ Ragging Sentences,” The Straits Times, September 23, 1971, p. 9, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 25New Paper, “No more Ragging,” New Paper, October 31, 1991, p. 4, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 26W. Yeo, “The last word…” The Straits Times, 19 Mar. 1997, p. 45. 27S. Lum, “Ex-Inmate: I was Sexually Assaulted, Beaten for Bragging,” The Straits Times, July 7, 2009, p. 7, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019; Zul.Othman, “’You tortured others as well,’” Today, July 10, 2009, p. 12, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 28In Singapore’s context, the secondary school, international school and Junior College generally consisted of students aged 13 to 18. 29Sinming Daily, “La Xiongzhao Daidie Luohan ‘San Wenzhi’... Youwei Zhengren Youxi Qianqi Baiguai Jiazhang Danxin Gaochu Renming 拉胸罩帶疊羅漢‘三文治’…有位證人遊戲千奇百怪家長擔心搞出人命 (Pulling bra straps piling onto each other as ‘sandwiches’... witnesses describe all kinds of weird games parents concerned about potential danger of games,” Sinming Daily, January 23, 2005, p. 7, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019; R. Tan & M.

analysis was later expanded into a series of discussion on Lianhe Zaobao in 2009.30 The two analyses provided detailed accounts of the type of sexualised hazing activities taking place within campus environments, including: the snapping of bra straps amongst girls, kerepok

(where a person gets slapped on his or her back repeatedly), taupok (where “up to a dozen boys would yell out the word, then pile themselves on top of the victim”), flagpoling (where a victim is carried by his feet by his friends and the friends slams his groin into a tree, pillar or a flagpole; some instances involve putting toothpaste on the genitals of the victim first before slamming his groin to the desired object), soggy biscuit/wet cookie (“a group of 10 or more boys ejaculate onto a large cookie as many times as they can,” and “the first person who fails to do so has to eat the cookie”), and wedgee (“the victim is surrounded by his friends, and they attempt to yank up both the front and the back of his briefs”).31 ZBComma (a subsection of Lianhe Zaobao)

Correspondent, Yang Yang, found in a 2009 survey that amongst Secondary One to Junior

College Year 2 students, 99% have witnessed some form of hazing activities, 67% did not agree with it, 37% did not stop the activity from taking place, yet only 2 out of the 30 surveyed students actually sought for help, while 1 student would hint for the perpetrator to stop.32 One of the more extreme forms of sexualised hazing activities came to the awareness of the public in

2007, when a Secondary 2 student was reportedly “slapped, stripped and filmed - and then extorted with threats of the video being posted on YouTube.”33 The revelation of how grave sexualised hazing as a phenomenon had become in the Singaporean pre-university campus communities only served to inflame debates within the Singaporean society about the acceptability of such activities.

Y. Ng, “Bonding Rituals: Thrill or Torture?” The Straits Times, January 23, 2005, p. 37, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 30Y. Yang 楊漾, “Heizheng Hazing Waifeng 黑整 Hazing 歪風 (The Problematic Trend of Hazing),” 聯合早報 Lianhe Zaobao, February 4, 2009, p. 12-15, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019. 31Sinming, “三文治,” July 23, 2005; Y. Yang, “Hazing,” February 4, 2009; Tan & Ng, “Thrill,” January 23, 2005. 32Y. Yang, “Hazing,” February 4, 2009. 33H. Liew, “’Pay us or we’ll post video’ police probe ‘happy slapping’ extortion attempt,’ The New Paper, 26 Apr. 2007, p. 2, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019.

National Service in the 1990s-2000s: A Sexually Prolific, And ‘Rapaciously’ Violent

Experience

Similar to the Taiwanese military, Singapore had an interestingly sexualised environment in National Service institutions. The language used in daily life was just as explicit, with conversations about sex with their partners as well as sex workers dominating conversations.

Individuals who abstained were condemned for not conforming to the norm.34 References to female genitalia were inserted as part of the daily lingo, and sex workers near Changi Village

(also known as ladyboys) were known to be frequented by the commando conscripts from

Hendon Camp.35 There were even rumours of soldiers having sex with one another in camps during the weekends.36

Yet, more than just being sexual, conscripts in the National Service institutions were

“rapaciously” violent in their sexual behaviours and attitudes, especially towards non- conforming individuals.37On a lighter level, non-conforming individuals could be subject to verbal abuses - and the social culture expected for others to join in; those who abstained from participating in the bullying may find themselves bullied as well.38 In the case of conscripts who identified as homosexual or displayed themselves to be more effeminate - a clear ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy applies.39 Should the conscript choose to violate the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’, the conscript would either be condemned through the system by being diagnosed with a mental disorder of being homosexual, or simply be “taunted by fellow platoon mates as gay,

34J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 692. 35J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 692; R. F. Phillips, “Queering Online: Transnational Sexual Citizenship in Singapore,” (Doctoral Dissertation, 2008). Retrieved from Proquest Dissertations and Theses database (3342950), 179. 36Chris K. K. Tan, email message to author, 15 May 2018, 2 August 2018. 37The choice of word “rapaciously” was adopted from J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 691. He uses it to describe how sexually violent and heteronormative and homophobic the national service institution is, but in this paragraph, I argue that such sexually violent attitude is not just for non-straight men, but deeply embedded in the institutional culture towards all non-conforming conscripts. 38J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 691-692. 39J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 691-692.

‘faggot’ or other derogatory expletives in Chinese dialects while superior officers present watched on in silent.”40

Yet, to get away with just verbal abuses would have been too easy. More often than not, abuses get physical against misfits in the National Service institutions in the 1990s and 2000s.

Described as a “challenge, to see if the guys are ‘game’ enough to join in the activity,” recruits commonly chose a target within the platoon that were commonly disliked, covered him with a blanket at night before beating the individual up.41 These individuals could be outcasted for reasons such as being sexually nonconforming (like in the examples in the previous paragraph), or simply because they came from an English-speaking background in a platoon of less-educated

‘Hokkien pengs’ (Hokkien-speaking soldiers).42 Light blanket parties may involve just “a quick beating before he knew what was going on;” heavier parties could involve wax, toothpaste and naked bodies.43 Unlike in Taiwan where sexualised hazing activities were conducted on a mix of brothers-in-arms as well as misfits, in Singapore, these activities were strictly saved for the outcasts of the team, and to show camaraderie, individuals who were not the victim of blanket parties were expected to participate in the activity.

Media Regulation in Singapore in the 1990s-2000s

To understand how and why sexualised hazing may be reported the way that it was, there is a need to first understand how the Singapore media was regulated. By the 1990s, most of the small news agencies had either gone bankrupt, been shut down, or were subsumed under the

40C. K. K. Tan, “Oi, Recruit! Wake Up Your Idea!” In Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, eds. A. Yue and J. Zubillaga-Pow (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Scholarship Online, 2012), 6-7. DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139330.001.0001; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 691-692. 41X. Lee, “Hewei Haohan 何謂好漢？[What is a Good Man?],” Lianhe Wanbao, 21 May 2018, p. 13; Chris K. K. Tan, email message to author, 15 May 2018, 2 August 2018. 42Chris K. K. Tan, email message to author, 15 May 2018, 2 August 2018. 43Chris K. K. Tan, email message to author, 15 May 2018, 2 August 2018; The Straits Times, “Ragging Video: SCDF to Punish Those Involved,” The Straits Times, 8 Nov. 2008, p. 49; Lianhe Wanbao. “Gen Ezheng Huaqing Jiexian 跟惡整‘劃清界線’[Drawing a Line from Hazing Practices],” Lianhe Wanbao, 24 May 2018, p. 9; Anonymous, interviewed by Shao Yuan Chong, 01 August 2018, interview reel 1, interview notes, Oral History Centre, National Archives of Singapore, National Library Board, Singapore. Interview unreleased at the time of dissertation publication, hence identifying information has been removed. Interviewee has agreed for information to be released without identifying information.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). SPH was an institution highly influenced by the incumbent government, and it monopolised the newspaper industry, owning most of the English-, Malay-,

Chinese- and Tamil-language dailies.44 The only non-SPH daily (Today) was run by the government-owned MediaCorp. Furthermore, news media were governed by the Newspaper and

Printing Presses Act, which not only required newspaper agencies to have permits to run; they also gave the government a say over management shares, allowing the government to have an influence over editorial decisions in major newspaper agencies.45 Alongside the Internal Security

Act which allowed for preventive detention without trial for up to two years at a time as well as

“‘Asian values’ journalism” which called for journalists to prioritise “consensus and harmony” before journalistic ideals, ‘self-censorship’ became a prominent feature in Singaporean journalism.46

This phenomenon of media censorship was perhaps most prevalent pertaining to issues surrounding national service institutions. Even within the Singapore Constitution, Article 14 emphasised that the Freedom of Speech, Assembly and Association may be compromised if it is necessary in view of “the interest of the security of Singapore or any part thereof… The clause has been interpreted to include freedom of the media.”47 Similarly, within the Singapore Armed

Forces Act, the “unauthorised disclosure of information [which] would, or might be useful to an enemy” was strictly prohibited, providing an additional legal barrier for military affairs to be reported.48 The choice to strictly censor the media in order to protect the national security of

Singapore very much aligned with how Singapore defined its concept of Total Defence, introduced in Singapore in order to “collectively augments the survivability of a nation under

44George, Freedom, xi-xiii, 32-33; Y.S.Ng, “A Compromising Position.” Overland, 227 (2017), 84, URL: http://libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=124509273&site=e host-live. 45George, Freedom, xi-xiii, 33, 35-36. 46George, Freedom, 29, 50-52. 47D. da Cunha, Singapore in the New Millennium: Challenges Facing the City-State (Singapore, Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 2002), 251-252. Project MUSE.muse.jhu.edu/book/18067. 48Kwek, “(Trans)National Service,” 70.

siege [sic].”49 The continued perception of Singapore being put under constant threat in the post-

9/11 climate, coupled with being in the midst of Nusantara, allowed the government to justify compromising on individuals’ rights for defence of the nation, and these rights included rights for the media to freely report about national security issues.

Furthermore, given how Singaporean men had to pass through the rite of passage of

National Service, the National Service experience was used to create a collective memory for the society. The use of such “strategic nostalgia” not only allowed for this conscription experience to be “deeply entrenched in the Singaporean psyche” on an individual level; it also allowed the society as a collective to display their sense of nationalism and commitment to the Singaporean identity.50 This collective memory created a tool for Singaporeans to identify individuals who were part of their community from individuals who did not belong.51 In this case, the media was in no position to discuss the negatives of the National Service experience as part of “calibrated coercion” in order to serve the image of societal support.52

Yet, with the Asian Financial Crisis hitting in 1997, the path of media reporting in

Singapore dichotomised as the society entered the 21st century. On one hand, there was a governmental attempt to “pre-empt unwelcome developments,” seemingly suggesting a tightening up of media freedom.53 Ministers were criticising The Straits Times for its reporting of socio-political issues that involved “arousing public alarm, unbalanced reporting and crusading journalism” after a critical newspaper report was written about a police arrest made in 1999.54

Accompanying the ministers’ criticism was the reactivation of the Publications Advisory

49Leong, Yang & Hong, “National Service,” 304. 50J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 695-696; Leong, Yang & Hong, “National Service,” 304-305. 51Leong, Yang & Hong, “National Service,” 313. 52J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 690-691. 53G. Rodan, Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia; Singapore and Malaysia (London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 93-96. 54Rodan, Transparency, 96.

Committee in 2001 to monitor press reporting, to prevent issues such as “sensationalism or other unwelcome developments.”55

On the other hand, limited liberalisation seemed to be taking place in the newspaper industry. This limited liberalisation was perhaps most represented by the introduction Today by the Media Corporation of Singapore (MediaCorp) in an attempt to create a sense of market economy in the journalism industry.56 Liberalisation took place not only in the form of media infrastructure, but also in terms of the type of content discussed (to be further elaborated later).

Such liberalisation may perhaps be incentivised by the development of online media into the 21st century, where information was posted online even if they were not reported on mainstream media.57 In a society where the Internet increased from having a mere 200,000 users in 1996 to a total of 2 million people (47.7% of the population) having their own Internet access by 2001, mainstream media censorship was no longer effective in preventing the spread of information as information was readily available online.58 Instead, limited liberalisation took place in order for mainstream media to provide a credible voice and a different perspective to those presented online, which often presented issues in a negative light.59

Presentation of Sexualised Hazing in Singapore: 1990s to 2000s

General reporting of sexualised hazing became increasingly explicit about the way sexualised hazing activities took place. As mentioned in previous sections, how the sexual violations took place (e.g., in the case of the Changi Prison in the 2000s), as well as exact games that were played in secondary schools, international schools and Junior Colleges (flagpoling, taupok, keropok, soggy biscuit and the likes) were narrated in detail in newspapers. Yet, interestingly, debates about the propriety of sexualised hazing activities in non-military settings

55Rodan, Transparency, 96. 56Rodan, Transparency, 93-96. 57George, Freedom, 168-169, 176-179. 58Rodan, Transparency, 93-96. 59George, Freedom, 176-179.

had not changed too much since the 1970s. While students were not protesting against punishments launched against raggers, the same arguments about whether hazing games were appropriate given their sexual nature continued (albeit extending into secondary schools, international schools and Junior College environments). Some argued that it was about personal consent and was just “innocent fun,” while others indicated that the activities were “distasteful” and had “real and painful consequences,” going so far as to encourage the start of an “anti-hazing week.”60 Perhaps, mrbrown (a Singaporean blogger) best summed up the debate in his satirical post on Today:

Someone shouts, “Taupok!” and as many guys as possible will pile on top of the target,

or the “taupokee.” In Western countries, it is called a pile-on. This is a dangerous and

silly game, of course (which adolescent game is not?). And a parent whose son was

studying “in a premier junior college in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio area,” where this game

took place, complained to the press, calling for an end to “taupok-ing.” The Education

Ministry made a statement. The school principal made a statement. A consultant

orthopaedic surgeon was interviewed to ensure that everyone understood how dangerous

taupoking-can be. So now, students from the premier junior college in the Bishan-Ang

Mo Kio area have been banned from taupoking… Taupok-ing is hazardous to your

health, says the Surgeon General. Your father complaining to the press is hazardous to

your social life, says mr brown. (Today, 2005)61

60Y. L. Koay, “Orientation Games not Lewd, but just Fun Activities,” The Straits Times, 7 Sep. 2008, p. 29, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; L. Tan, “Good and Bad in Uni Orientation Camps,” The Straits Times, 15 Sep. 2008, p. 21, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; The New Paper, “Zero Tolerance for Dangerous Pranks,” The New Paper, 27 April 2007, p. 6, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; L. Zhang 張立勵, “Ni Zhichi Xuexiao Kaizhan “Fan Heizheng Zhou” Ma 你支持學校開展“反黑整週“嗎 (Do You Support a Hazing Week in Schools)？” Lianhe Zaobao, 11 Feb 2009, p. 14-15, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; R. Tan and M. Y. Ng, “Bonding Rituals: Thrill or Torture?” The Straits Times, 23 January 2005, p. 37, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; S. W. Y. Chua, “Students Need to Outgrow Herd Mentality,” The Straits Times, 13 Jan. 2005, p. H10, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020. 61Mr brown, “The Tao of Pok,” Today, 14. Jan. 2005, p. 26, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020.

In contrast, the change in presentation of newspaper reporting of sexualised hazing in the conscript institutions seemed more stark across time. In the 1990s, the only form of sexualised interactions reported from conscript institutions related to individual cases of illegalities. In the two reports reporting about the Staff Sergeant of the Police Academy who molested a male recruit and was sentenced to jail, the focus was very much on the fact that the accused, Ahmad

Rashidi, had “tried to hug him (the victim) and fondle his private parts… [and] that Ahmad

Rashidi was a homosexual.”62 The emphasis on the accused’s supposed sexuality coincided in a time where sexuality was still a controversial issue that newspapers avoided discussing, making the choice to report about Rashidi’s sexuality unusual.63 More significantly, when such cases were reported at all, they seemed to be attributed to individual cases and problems, rather than a broader problem of a culture set in place.

Yet, by the 2000s, the discussions had shifted away from topics of legality, to focus on broader social concerns as a result of individual instances of sexualised hazing. In a report in

2006, the act of sexualised hazing involved “an NSman pinned to the ground as his peers try to cover him in shoe polish.”64 Yet, the focus of the news article was on the fact that “servicemen are not allowed to carry video cameras, cameras or phones with cameras into SAF camps and training areas… It is quite one thing to do silly things in the confines of a camp or barracks with no one to see you but your platoon mates. It is quite another thing to capture those acts of silliness in a permanent record and share them with the world at large, because it negatively affects the image of the SAF.”65 In this case, the focus was with the inappropriate use of recording devices in the conscript institution vicinity and the digital distribution of recordings from the vicinity, rather than the act of sexualised hazing. There were bigger problems (e.g.,

62The Straits Times, “Police Academy Staff Sergeant Gets Month’s Jail for Molest,” The Straits Times, 17 March 1996, p. 30, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; The Straits Times, “Inspector Testifies in Policeman’s Molest Case,” The Straits Times, 25 Jan. 1996, p. 44, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020. 63George, Freedom, 50-52. 64J. Y. Au, “It’s not funny, says MINDEF: video clips of NSMen clowning around,” The Straits Times, 3 Sep. 2006, p. 3, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020. 65 J. Y. Au, “It’s not funny.”

violating rules like the digital distribution of recordings from conscript institutions) coming out of these reports reporting about sexualised hazing, and the act of sexualised hazing in itself was not one of them.

Another instance of refocusing reports away from the act of sexualised hazing, would be the potential of viewing these activities as part of a broader bullying culture in conscript institution. Despite the victim claiming that “he was verbally, physically and sexually abused by his colleagues,” with his seniors going so far as to have told the victim to “strip and stand naked

[before his seniors],” with the victim “being shaved at my privates” and the seniors having “used an object to slam onto my backside,” this whole chain of activity was still described by the news report as “bullying” rather than a form of sexual assault.66 Without diminishing the seriousness of bullying, to describe sexualised hazing activities as physical bullying rather than focusing on how it could be interpreted as a form of sexual assault, results in the reports failing to recognise the sexual and consequently, different implications that could result from these acts.

These acts of sexualised hazing were given such little focus that victims of sexualised hazing may even be blamed in instances where they retaliated. In 2002, Seah, the victim of a ragging activity, retaliated against his colleagues and was charged for his acts of inflicting burns against his colleagues in the course of retaliation.67 In reports discussing the event, the reports tended to focus on such as how, for example, “lawyer George Pereira told the court Seah realised he had been ‘utterly rash and stupid’, and had destroyed a lifelong ambition to be a police officer.”68 While the attribution of the quote to the lawyer made the report sound objective, the intentional focus on the fault of Seah, who had first been a victim of ragging activities, allows the reader to appreciate the little weight placed on ragging activities as compared to supposed bigger concerns. It was not until 2009, at the end of the decade, did the hazing culture within the

66J. L. Teh, “New firefighter says seniors abused him,” The Straits Times, 10 April 2007, p. 24. 67 S. M. Wong, “Wrong move sends trainee cop to jail,” The Straits Times, 9 May 2002, p. 1, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020. 68Wong, “Wrong Move.”

military get acknowledged, and even then, it was discussed as a one-liner, as part of a bigger exploration of hazing activities taking place in campus settings.69

Overall, changes were observed pertaining to the reporting of sexualised hazing activities in Singapore conscript institutions in the 1990s and 2000s. This increased reporting in sexualised hazing activities in the conscript institutions aligned well with the limited liberalisations of the news media, and interestingly, some of the news reports were primarily based upon online resources, such as videos posted online, reflecting the broader implications of the development of the Internet.70 The next chapter employs some of the common global and regional phenomenon influencing both Taiwan and Singapore in the 1990s and 2000s, to compare and understand the similarities and differences in media reporting of sexualised hazing in the conscript institution historically.

69L. Zhang, “Hazing Week.” 70 The Straits Times, “Ragging Video: SCDF to Punish Those Involved,” The Straits Times, 8 Nov. 2008, p. 49, NewspaperSG, accessed on February 26, 2020; J. Y. Au, “It’s not funny.”

Chapter 4

The Divergence of Two Conservative Societies from the 1990s to 2000s

How did two societies that were considerably conservative prior to the 1990s - two societies that identified with Confucian values - differ so much by the end of the 2000s in terms of their reporting of sexualised hazing activities in conscript institutions? In choosing to discuss newspaper reporting of sexualised hazing in conscript institutions, this thesis argues that the perspective of newspaper agencies helps inform understandings of the shaping of public discourse in both countries. This chapter situates the discussion among factors affecting the East and Southeast Asia regions at the time, and uses the research questions to guide a comparison between Taiwan and Singapore in their development of newspaper reporting of sexualised hazing in the 1990s and 2000s.

Were news agencies to talk about the acts of sexualised hazing at all?

Discussions about sexualised hazing in the general society were already taking place in newspapers in the 1990s in both Taiwan and Singapore, as suggested in Chapters 2 and 3. While these topics were often discussed in notions of ragging and bullying, acts were acknowledged in detail, as evident in interdisciplinary scholars Bih Herng-Dar and Huang Haitao’s description of aluba reportings in Taiwan, as well as the continued reporting of the struggles of the administrators trying to ban ragging activities and the reflections of students who were going through the ritual in Singapore.1 The phenomenon of reporting on sexualised hazing, at least in the civilian context, was largely a continuity from the past rather than a change that occurred with the turn of the century.

1New Paper, “No more Ragging,” New Paper, October 31, 1991, p. 4, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on 30 September 2019; W. Yeo, “The last word…” The Straits Times, 19 Mar. 1997, p. 45; H. D. Bih & H. Huang, “Aluba and ‘high’ culture: adolescent male peer culture in play,” Gender and Education 24, no. 2 (2012): 156-157, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2011.602330.

Yet, to ignore the historical impacts of the Asian Financial Crisis on the East and

Southeast Asian region’s media would be doing the societies in both regions a disservice.

Political scientist Ian Marsh specifically identifies how in East and Southeast Asia, aside from

Singapore and Malaysia, the media industry as a whole was introducing more robust spaces for socio-political discussions, as commercial imperatives took priority and censorship slowly dwindled in the early-2000s.2 From 1998 to 1999, Indonesian president Habibie’s government introduced new press laws that removed licensing provisions, restrictions and censorship for print media; alongside the change in press laws was the introduction of a new press council such that the council could take over the role of the government in being the watchdog for press reporting.3 Taiwan followed the pathway of many other East and Southeast Asian states: news agencies increased from having 31 to 708 news agencies within the span of two years. News agencies like Apple Times Taiwan entered the Taiwanese news media scene, revolutionising the culture of news reporting in Taiwan into dominated by sensationalism and partisanship.4

Focusing our lens specifically on the reporting of sexualised hazing in the military, this trend of sensationalism shows immediately: the number of reports discussing some form of hazing, sexualised play or sexualised hazing increased by about five times from the 1990s to 2000s.

Singapore attempted to follow the trend across the region by attempting to create a controlled market economy through the introduction of Today; however, in the name of protecting national interests, the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA) that existed even until the end of 2009 continued encouraging self-censorship amongst print media journalists.5 This self-censorship

2I. Marsh, “Democratisation, regionalism and state capacity in East and Southeast Asia,” in Democratisation, Governance and Regionalism in East and Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study, ed. I. Marsh, Coventry, United Kingdom: Routledge/Warwick Studies in Globalisation, 2009, 250-251. 3C. George and G. Venkiteswaran. Media and Power in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 15. 4 H.W. Hsiao (蕭憲文), “報紙犯罪新聞之報導手法對閱聽人人知與態度之影響研究 [The Impact of How Crime News Are Reported in Newspapers],” (Masters thesis, National Taiwan University, 2005), p. 6. 5 C. George, “Freedom from the Press,” (Singapore: NUS Press Pte Ltd, 2012), 1-2, 32-33, 40; G. Rodan, Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia; Singapore and Malaysia (London, United Kingdom: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), p.34- 35; S. Ortmann, “Political Change and Civil Society Coalitions in Singapore,” Government and Opposition 50, no. 1 (2015): 127-128.

resulted in the divergence of Singapore’s media reporting from the rest of the East and Southeast

Asian states: small numbers of reports regarding sexualised hazing in conscription institutions continued to be published, and this phenomenon reflected the conservative approach print media journalists adopted at least up until the end of 2009.

Furthermore, the rise of the Internet era meant that information was revealed online even when print media were censored in the 2000s. Media scholar Jonathan Woodier describes Asia as “witnessing the most significant increase in ICT penetration compared to any other region in the world, at any other time” in the late-1990s and 2000s. This regional phenomenon had immediate implications on the media industry.6 In 1999, opposition parties in Malaysia such as the Islamist Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS) and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) were releasing newspapers and launching broadcast channel such as Harakah Web TV online in order to overcome legal restrictions the government imposed on print media.7 The world of the Internet became a platform for alternative media to appear; with competing information released to societies, the print media industry in East and Southeast Asia was forced to adapt. In the case of

Taiwan, adaptation took the form of building sensational news through information supplied by the Internet, where online information provided content for five out of the twelve articles relating to aluba or fellatio incidences in the military. In contrast, in Singapore, the print media chose to engage with online information by providing an “authoritative,” “credible” voice to clarify these alternative news online.8 This attempt at correcting perceptions is evident from reports discussing sexualised hazing videos posted online, where the print media was quick to clarify that the relevant ministry had quickly taken actions against the individuals who posted the videos

6 J. Woodier, The Media and Political Change in Southeast Asia (Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Elgar Online, 2009), 272. 7Woodier, Media, 97-98. 8George, Freedom, 176-179.

online, and to clarify that the acts of uploading the videos online were misdeeds on the part of the individuals.9

Newspaper agencies felt the need to attend to topics relating to sexualised hazing in both

Taiwan and Singapore, especially into the 2000s. Sexualised hazing in the general society was already being discussed on print media in the 1990s and 2000s. However, the increase in information flow because of the Internet as well as the push towards a more liberal market economy for the media industry in East and Southeast Asia in the post-Asian Financial Crisis context meant that the media industry in both societies had to adapt. In Taiwan, these changes provided opportunities for the media industry to make themselves more competitive, and the print media agencies proactively used the Internet as a source of information to create more sensationalised news to attract a wider pool of audience amidst the growing number of news agencies competing in the industry in the 2000s. In Singapore, given the limited liberalisation occurring with the continuation of censorship regulations, the print media took on a more reactive approach vis-a-vis information released online about sexualised hazing in the military.

The Singaporean print media merely responded when such information appeared; otherwise, it chose not to actively report on these incidences where possible.

Were news agencies to discuss the sexualised hazing incidences happening within conscript institutions?

Shifting the lens away from general media censorship and liberalisation, regional trends suggested that conscript institutions generally did not share information on internal affairs with the general public. (Para)military institutions were often involved in national or homeland security, and these institutions in East and Southeast Asia were described as being “obsessed by security and secrecy: two of the key elements to waging effective war.” Such concerns over

9J. Y. Au, “It’s not funny, says MINDEF: video clips of NSMen clowning around,” The Straits Times, 3 Sep. 2006, p. 3, retrieved from NewspaperSG, accessed on February 25, 2020.

security and secrecy made a free press reporting about the ongoings of the institutions unsuitable for their institutional purposes.10 In the Philippines, Woodier reports about how journalists faced risks of getting killed should they criticise the military.11 To use the Philippines as an example to represent all societies within East and Southeast Asia would be extreme. However, given the close ties between conscript institutions and the government in these regions, the governments did have an incentive to protect the secrecy of the happenings within these organisations, and the first step to doing that would be through controlling the media’s freedom.

In the case of Singapore, the conscript institutions were housed under the Ministry of

Defence and the Ministry of Home Affairs as part of the government body of ministries.12

Especially given the perceived continued threat of being in the midst of Nusantara as well as the importance of retaining the role of the conscription as part of Singapore’s collective memory

(discussed in Chapter 3), Singapore censored its media in order to keep the occurrences of hazing within its conscript institution hush-hush in view of national security concerns.13 Consequently, the Singaporean media chose to minimise discussions about sexualised hazing incidences going on in the military where possible. Barely any articles truly discussed about sexualised hazing occurrences in the military in the 1990s in Singapore; by the 2000s, less than ten articles truly discussed such occurrences, and as mentioned in Chapter 3, most, if not all the articles discussed these incidences couched in other ‘bigger’ problems that the acts were situated in.

Taiwan had a similar policy of secrecy up until about 1987, explaining the media bans that were in place until 1988.14 The remnants of these bans and self-censorship resulted in

10Woodier, Media, 152-153, 180. 11Woodier, Media, 135-137. 12Gov.sg, “Singapore Government Directory,” Government of Singapore, last revised December 29, 2019, accessed on February 27, 2020, URL: https://www.sgdi.gov.sg/ministries. 13 A. Chong & S. Chan, “Militarizing civilians in Singapore: preparing for ‘Crisis’ within a calibrated nationalism,’ The Pacific Review 30, no. 3 (2017): 379-380, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2016.1249906; C. H. Leong, W. W. Yang, & J. Hong, “National Service: The Holy Grail in the Management of Social Diversity.” In Managing Diversity in Singapore Policies and Prospects, eds. M. Mathews and W. F. Chiang (London, United Kingdom: Imperial College Press, 2016), p. 304-305, 313; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing national service: the cultural reproduction of masculinities and militarization of male citizenship in Singapore.” Journal of Gender Studies 28, no. 6 (2019): 687-698. DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2019.1604329, p. 695-696; George, Freedom, 1-2. 14Clark, “Taiwan in the 1990s,” 199; Yun, “Activists,” 155.

sexualised hazing cases in the military being hardly reported up until about 2003, unless they were cases that violated the law (see Chapter 2). Yet, with Taiwan’s prime threat - the People’s

Republic of China (PRC) - becoming one of Taiwan’s key trading partners, conscription turned into a routine exercise with little meaning beyond being a cultural ritual for Taiwanese men.15

The loss in the political significance of the Taiwanese conscription system by the 2000s - best represented by the reduction of conscription from two years to four months with plans to abolish the system altogether - may be the reason why the media took the liberty to criticise and sensationalise news from within the conscript institution with little consequence, hence explaining the growing prominence of military sexualised hazing and sexualised play as a topic in the Taiwanese media.16

Initially, news agencies chose not to discuss sexualised hazing incidences within conscript institutions where possible. The Singaporean media consistently held this stand from the 1990s up until the 2000s, only bringing these topics up to provide a credible perspective when information was already released through other mediums. The Taiwanese media also avoided discussing these topics in the 1990s. Yet the decreased significance of the conscription system suggested to the media that they could exploit the opportunity to provide more competitive, sensationalised news, resulting in increasing reports of sexualised hazing incidences in the military, providing juicy gossip for the public while simultaneously shaming the military institution.

15 Y. C. Kao & H.D. Bih “Masculinity in Ambiguity: Constructing Taiwanese Masculine Identities between Great Powers,” in Masculinities in a Global Era, International and Cultural Psychology, ed. by J. Gelfer (New York: Springer, 2013), 176, 180-181; K. H. Chin, “The Sexual Logic of Military Patriarchy Reproduction: The Experience of Military Service in Taiwan,” (Masters Thesis, National Tsinghua University, 1997), 56, 67, 70, 72. 16 E. Setzekorn, “Military Reform in Taiwan: The Lafayette Scandal, National Defense Force and All-Volunteer Force,” American Journal of Chinese Studies 21, no. 1 (2014): 16-17. URL: http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=30h&AN=961147 13&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Were news agencies to identify these hazing activities in the military as sexualised acts?

To discuss sexualised hazing by explaining it as a form of bullying is common - however, historically, there seemed to be an avoidance in confronting the sexualised nature of the hazing activities. Sociologist Insook Kwon neatly summarises this phenomenon in East and Southeast

Asia through her example from South Korea:

In July 2003, male-on-male sexual violence in the military first raised public interest in

earnest after the suicide of an enlisted recruit, known as Private Kim, overlapped with a

successive string of male-on-male sexual violence cases. The public articulated a range of

reactions, including surprise that “men are sexually harassing men”; expressions of worry

that the current situation is a result of “military discipline becoming too slack”; sympathy

from those who believe this is to be expected “when you force hot-blooded boys into a

confined place”; and even disgust in a response stating that “male on male sexual

behavior is an abnormality that only occurs between homosexuals.” Responses were

forthcoming not only from the media but also from military authorities… the chief of

staff of the Korean Army prescribed “sexual violence” as “a sex-related military

discipline incident” and implemented the “Supplement for the Redemption and Systemic

Prevention of Sex-Related Military Discipline Violations,” where the first proscription

was “On the Regulation of Enlisting Sexually Handicapped [homosexual, etc.]

Persons.”…17

This refusal to acknowledge male-to-male sexual violence as a problem - either avoiding the issue altogether, or refusing to recognise the sexualised nature of the act even when a discussion ensues - was a pattern of behaviour in East and Southeast Asian societies. As Kwon indicates in the above quote, these behaviours in the military were seen as “an abnormality that only occurs

17 I. Kwon, “Masculinity and Male-on-Male Sexual Violence in the Military,” in Militarised Currents by S. Shigematsu and K. L. Camacho (Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 223-224.

between homosexuals” regardless of how common these activities actually were, and the East and Southeast Asian media agencies chose to refrain from discussing such controversial topics.18

As discussed in previous sections and in Chapters 2 and 3, in both Singapore and Taiwan, the topic of sexualised hazing in the military was avoided altogether in the 1990s as well unless there were legal violations involved. Even by the 2000s, despite the growing Lesbian-Gay-

Bisexual-Transsexual-Queer (LGBTQ) movements in Singapore, topics on alternative genders and sexuality remained a controversial topic.19 §377A under the Statutes of the Republic of

Singapore Penal Code (Chapter 224), remained in place, stating that “[a]ny male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.”20 §377A suggested that if acts of sexual interaction between men - be it in the form of sexualised hazing, or sexual play - were known to the public, the participants of the act (both the victim and perpetrator) could be subjected to legal repercussions. This potential legal risk may explain why even when individuals were subjected to sexualised hazing and abuses, they chose not to report it to the media or to higher authorities. Further, within society, there were little to no social support structures available for men who faced sexual assault up until 2009.21 On a societal level, there was also barely any recognition of the possibility of men potentially being sexually assaulted.

18As indicated in Chapter 1, in the South Korean military, Kwon et al.’s (2007) research identified 15.4% of conscripted male respondents indicating that they had faced some sort of sexual victimisation in the course of their conscription, and 24.7% indicating they had witnessed some form of sexual violence. With that, the supposed ‘abnormality’ was in fact but a misconception on the public’s part. I. Kwon, D. O. Lee, E. Kim, and H. Y. Kim, “Sexual Violence among Men in the Kilitary in South Korea,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 22, no. 8 (2007): 1028. 19 Y.S. Ng, “A Compromising Position,” Overland, 227 (2017), 83-89, URL: https://search-informit-com- au.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=044898218767724;res=IELAPA. 20 Attorney-General’s Chambers Singapore, “The Statutes of the Republic of Singapore: Penal Code (Chapter 224),” last updated November 30, 2008, accessed on February 25 2020, URL: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PC1871?ViewType=Pdf&_=20180520143241. 21 The first Sexual Assault Befrienders Service was not started until 2011; the first Sexual Assault Care Centre was not created until 2014; and the first government-run OneSafe Centre (to support sexual assault victim) was not created until 2017. Sexual Assault Care Centre, “Background of SACC,” AWARE, accessed on February 25, 2020, URL: http://sacc.aware.org.sg/about-sacc/; B. Y. Seow, “New One-Stop Centre for Alleged Rape Victims.” The Straits Times, February 18, 2017, accessed on February 25, 2020, URL: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/new-one-stop-centre-for- alleged-rape-victims.

Housed under “women’s issue,” the Ministry of Social and Family Development maintained a consistent record of having 0 male rape victims reported up until 2016.22 In the meantime, the military remained an overwhelmingly heterosexual and homophobic environment, where diagnosing homosexuality as a mental disorder and abusing platoon mates with derogatory terms such as ‘faggot’ and other derogatory expletives in Chinese dialects remained acceptable.23 In a society like Singapore in the 1990s and 2000s, its media - one which claimed to be governed by

‘Asian values’ and shunned controversial topics - avoided discussing hazing activities in the military for its sexualised nature: it was a decision between talking about the activities for its bigger implications outside its sexualised nature (as discussed in Chapter 3), or not discussing the issue at all.24

Unlike Singapore, Taiwan saw a shift in attitudes towards LGBTQ issues by the 2000s.

This shift in attitude came hand-in-hand with an increasingly accepting attitude towards homoeroticism within the news media. With the growth of LGBTQ clubs, Pride Parade and social organisations in the 1990s, the Taiwanese community was already making headway in pushing for the establishment of legislations to legalise same-sex marriage and child adoption by

2006 (although the Legislative Yuan only made the decision to rule the prohibition of same-sex marriage as unconstitutional in 2017, legalising the process in 2019).25 While the civil society was making progress with LGBTQ issues, the military was facing an interesting dilemma at the same time vis-a-vis non-straight conscripts. The military had maintained a “pervasive climate of homophobia at the interpersonal level;” however, interdisciplinary scholars Kao Ying-chao and

22 Ministry of Social and Family Development, “Violence: Rape Victims,” Ministry of Social and Family Development, accessed on February 25, 2020, URL: https://www.msf.gov.sg/research-and-data/Research-and-Statistics/Pages/Violence- Rape-Victims.aspx. 23More information about the homophobic abuses taking place can be explored in Chapter 3. C. K. K. Tan, “Oi, Recruit! Wake Up Your Idea!” In Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, eds. A. Yue and J. Zubillaga-Pow (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Scholarship Online, 2012), 76-77. DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789888139330.001.0001; J. Lowe, “Masculinizing Singapore,” 691-692. 24George, Freedom, 50-52, 66-67. 25M. S. Ho, “Taiwan’s Road to Marriage Equality: Politics of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage,” The China Quarterly 238 (2019), 482-503, DOI: 10.1017/S0305741018001765.

Bih Herng-dah suggest that “gay conscripts may queer the heteronormative environment” in ways such as engaging in sexual games with their colleagues or even superiors to maintain a good relationship with them.26 The willingness to make light of the issue of sexual play and sexualised hazing - as both an issue of embarrassment as well as an activity to enhance community bonding - came at a time when same-sex sexual interactions were growingly accepted in Taiwan. The liberalisation of the Taiwanese society in terms of such civil issues resulted in the willingness of the news media outlets to discuss sexualised hazing and sexual play.

At the start of the 1990s, news agencies from neither societies were willing to discuss hazing activities in the military as sexualised acts. They focused on the legality of the issues, should they discuss the issue at all. This decision to avoid reporting on the phenomenon was very much in line with what media agencies in the region with similar value systems were doing.

Nevertheless, the two societies diverged as Taiwan shifted its value system to become more cognisant of issues relating to gender and sexuality whilst Singapore largely retained its mode of thinking from the 1990s. As such, by 2009, Taiwanese media reports on sexual play and sexualised hazing in the military started recognising the activities for its sexual nature, while

Singaporean reports on these activities continued coating them with discussions of other issues.

To summarise this chapter, on a general level, news agencies were already talking about sexualised hazing; however, these topics were not discussed in the military context in view of national security concerns and censorship regulations in Singapore and Taiwan in the 1990s.

With the introduction of the Internet, both societies took a turn towards discussing more about sexualised hazing activities in the military in the 2000s given the competing information coming from the Internet as an alternative media. However, accompanied with the post-Asian Financial

Crisis circumstances as well as the diminishing role of the Taiwanese conscription system,

26Kao & Bih, “Masculinity,” 184-185.

Taiwanese news agencies indulged in the abundance of information coming out of the development of the Internet in order to remain competitive in the burgeoning media industry in the 2000s. In contrast, the Singaporean news media agencies remained conservative even as it was forced to discuss more about the issue in order to provide a credible voice against the information provided online. Singapore continued facing the threat of national security even into the 21st century, and the conscription system was retained as a form of collective identity for the

Singaporean community. The conscript institutions needed to maintain a good image rather than be subjected to open criticisms for activities occurring such as sexualised hazing. Further, the changes in attitudes towards issues of gender and sexuality resulted in the Taiwanese media becoming increasingly willing to acknowledge the sexual nature of these hazing and play going on in the military. In contrast, the continued subscription to ‘Asian Values’ meant that the sexual nature of the activities were largely overlooked given its association with homoeroticism and, consequently, homosexuality. To use Southeast Asia and East Asia as a region to situate our comparison of Singapore and Taiwan was a grand endeavour that was hardly reasonable given how heterogenous the individual countries in each of the region were. However, by using these regions as a platform for comparison, it allows us to acknowledge the historical and cultural similarities in each of these societies, recognising the interconnectedness of the region as well as some of the post-colonial frameworks that these decolonised societies took on that are more similar than they are often credit for being.

Conclusion

This thesis is important given how there has only been one empirical study that considers sexualised hazing in conscript militaries in Confucian societies. The Confucian collectivist values that this thesis continually discusses about provides a framework as to why conscripts in

Taiwan and Singapore would participate in sexualised hazing, regardless of whether they felt there was anything wrong with the activities. This continued participation in the activities created a tradition of sexualised hazing within the institutions. Further, the Confucian collectivist values help explain why these activities were hardly reported, as the reports compromised on the interests of the state-associated conscript institutions.

The lack of research on sexualised hazing activities taking place in Confucian conscript societies is significant given the critical role of conscription in these conscript societies.

Conscription continue to define the national narrative of many conscript societies like Taiwan and Singapore up until today. Every man identifying as Taiwanese or Singaporean needs to pass through conscription; their experiences in conscription would also define their attitudes and interactions towards one another and towards individuals who had not gone through conscription.

The importance of recognising sexualised hazing activities has been established, and the print media, as a platform for understanding these phenomenon, is appropriate because the print media is able to represent the societal attitudes towards these activities from the 1990s to the

2000s, attitudes that this thesis aims to evaluate. The local print media informs ordinary, yet important, everyday events just as much as it provides information about extreme events. To engage its audience, the local news media aims to speak using language and tone that the audience is familiar with, addressing values that the audience adheres to. To read local news is to understand what the local audience cares about, and to understand how frequently and how

sexualised hazing is described in print media, is to understand what values and topics the society concerns itself with.1

The print media plays more than just a passive role of regurgitating information from everyday events; it takes on an important role in determining what information is made publicly available through agenda-setting, framing and priming.2 The print media in Taiwan was intended to serve as the Fourth Estate, to check on the system of democracy, and to contribute to the market economy. However, because of market competition, news standards had been lowered, and objectivity and complexity of issues were compromised with the goal of having exclusive, sensational news to increase readership.3 Media and Communications scholars Cheryl Ann

Lambert and H. Denis Wu suggest that because “[c]onsiderable negative consequences exist for those who do not adhere to market-driven expectations,” the focus of Taiwanese journalists was

“maximizing profit for the company while also serving the public interest,” with the former taking priority.4 As Lambert and Wu indicate, “[a] revenue-driven media operation might abandon its social responsibility role to inform, investigate and uncover important issues, treating news simply as a commodity.”5 The reduced priority of social responsibility by the Taiwanese print media meant that topics that sold well naturally make it higher onto the agenda; the patriarchal, militarised Confucian values that the society adhered to only mattered when they generated readership. This phenomenon in Taiwan makes the print media especially relevant for our analysis, given that the competitive print media industry allows us to gain insights as to the topics that captivates the readers.

1 C. Kitch, “Placing Journalism Inside Memory – And Memory Studies,” Memory Studies 1, no. 3 (2008): 312–313. doi:10.1177/1750698008093796. 2 For more information about agenda-setting, framing and priming, see J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver, Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2008). 3 C. A. Lambert & H. D. Wu, “Journalists in Taiwan: Marketplace Challenges in a Free Media System,” in Critical Perspectives on Journalistic Beliefs and Actions: Global Experiences, eds. E. Freedman, R. S. Goodman & R. Steyn(New York, NY: Routledge, 2018), 62-63, 64. 4 Lambert & Wu, “Journalists in Taiwan,” 64-65. 5 Lambert & Wu, “Journalists in Taiwan,” 64.

In contrast, in the neoliberal authoritarian Singapore, the print media was meant to supplement national interests and state goals. The prioritisation of social stability, economic growth and national interest resulted in an avoidance of topics that criticised state institutions, as well as a lack of investigative stories.6 Singaporean print media agencies prioritised the social responsibility that they viewed themselves as having; furthermore, with the duopoly of the two state-influenced print media agencies (the Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp) and the media regulations in place, journalists were in a safer position subscribing to a culture of self- censorship rather than concerning themselves with profit-margins and readership.7 The topics that the Singaporean print media chose to report about did not surround necessarily reflect everything that occurred amongst the Singaporean citizens. However, the print media provides us with the lens to understand the topics and values (e.g., the militarised Confucian values) that the state-influenced media wants the citizens to consider and prioritise. The frequency of reports on the sexualised hazing phenomenon in conscript institutions, as well as the manner which the phenomenon was framed in the news media reports, serves to indicate these priorities upheld by the print media agencies and, in extension, the state.

Aside from determining what gets remembered and what gets forgotten, the type of events the print media discusses and the way the print media discusses the topic (be it frequency or tone) determines what or whether local audience should feel connected to the event or not.8

The ability to stir the emotions of the local audience through the provision of relevant information not only allows for actions to be taken in the short-term in response to the news, but it also contributes to the collective memory of the society by deciding what information and events were relevant to the society.9 While the print media had not reinforced or reduced the

6 S. Wu, “Uncovering Alternative ‘Journalism Crisis’ Narratives in Singapore and Hong Kong: When State Influences Interact with Western Liberal Ideals in a Changing Media Landscape,” Journalism 19, no. 9-10 (2018): 1296, 1299. DOI: 10.1177/1464884917753786. 7 Wu, “Uncovering Alternative,” 1300. 8 L. Mannik, “Writing Individual Journalist's Memories into Collective Memory,” Journalism Studies 16, no. 4 (2015), 565- 566, 572-573, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2014.922294 9 Mannik, “Inidividual Journalist,” 569-572. See also Kitsch, “Placing Journalism Inside Memory,” 316-317.

frequency or intensity of acts of sexualised hazing despite its reporting, it acts as a good, publicly available avenue for scholars to understand what and how sexualised hazing was taking place given its attempt to provide relevant information for the readers in the two societies. It also gave us a good sense of the extent of which the culture of sexualised hazing within conscript institutions had been embedded into the publicly recognised collective memory of the discussed societies.

This thesis was crafted to first consider the propriety of the print media to even report about sexualised hazing. Thereafter, this thesis sought to establish if print media could afford to discuss sexualised hazing in specifically conscript institutions. Lastly, this thesis tried to find out if acts were described in its sexual nature, or if they were simply discussed as acts of hazing whilst failing to recognise its sexual element. Throughout the chapters, this author attempted to establish existing understandings and prevalence of sexualised hazing in and out of conscript institutions in Taiwan, and then, Singapore respectively, before considering how the media reported on such topics. Thereafter, the two nations’ print media agencies were compared in their ways of portraying sexualised hazing activities by situating them in regional and global trends and considering which nation’s media conformed and which nation’s media in fact deviated from regional and global trends because of local circumstances.

In Taiwan, sexualised interactions, games and sexualised hazing had been a common phenomenon across the lifespan of Taiwanese men. Not only were secondary school students already playing games like aluba, when Taiwanese professionals entered adulthood, they continued practices such as flower-drinking. Sexualised interactions were further facilitated by the inherently sexualised nature of the Taiwanese military institutions, where not only did sexual vulgarities colour daily language use, military songs were parodied with sexual variations; men in the military even had sex with one other. Sexualised hazing was categorised into three types:

(i) hierarchical bullying – a sustained tradition where seniors bullied juniors despite an explicit

ban to stop such culture in the 2000s; (ii) group discrimination against outcasts, such as individuals who were identified as being more feminine, homosexual, or even being more educated; and (iii) games that were intended for bonding at a place and time of life where men were growingly fatigued and found little meaning in their daily activities.

With the removal of media bans and the liberalisation of Taiwanese society in 1988 under

President Chiang Ching-kuo’s leadership, more and more news agencies were created, and the increased competition between news agencies in Taiwan resulted in the increased use of sensationalism and partisanship in news writings. During the early stages from the 1990s up until

2002, little, if any, articles on sexualised hazing appeared. When they did, articles focused on discussions of suicide and deaths with no description of how hazing activities took place; by the early 2000s, mentions of sexualised hazing continued focusing on the dangers of such activities.

However, with the introduction of Apple Daily Taiwan revolutionising the writing style of

Taiwan news media, the number of news articles writing about sexualised hazing quadrupled.

News articles increasingly focused on shaming the military for its failure to discipline its soldiers; some articles even started acknowledging that sexualised hazing acted as entertaining memories for soldiers to remember after conscription. In an era where conscription was losing its meaning in Taiwan, new avenues for collective memories were found and represented through the media, ironically through the very sexualised hazing activities that were discussed throughout this thesis.

Similar to Taiwan, sexualised hazing activities were already being reported in Singapore across the civilian society. More significantly, these reports were appearing prior to Singapore’s independence in 1965 in university settings. By the 1990s and 2000s, these reports had spread to include topics of sexualised hazing in prison and secondary school settings. Also similar to

Taiwan, these sexualised interactions were reinforced given the sexually prolific and violent nature of the conscript institutions, with the liberal use of profanities (associated with genitalia)

and the known reputation of conscripts visiting sex workers. Sexualised hazing took the form of verbal and physical abuses against outcasts in the group - blanket parties involving wax, toothpaste and naked bodies were reserved for misfits rather than comrades, a key difference between Singaporean conscripts’ use of sexualised hazing from Taiwanese conscripts.

State-influenced agencies monopolised the print media industry; media laws such as the

Newspaper and Printing Presses Act were also implemented in Singapore. Consequently, in the

1990s, journalists were self-censoring in their news reporting, avoiding the discussion of sexualised hazing in conscript institutions. This act of self-censorship was important because the conscript institutions were all involved in either national or homeland security. The society prioritised these security concerns over press freedom given the Singapore’s vulnerable position being situated in the Nusantara. Further, National Service acted as a tool for the society to gather a sense of nationalism, acting as a collective memory for all individuals in society as all members of society were involved in National Service either directly or indirectly (through supporting their loved ones when they were conscripted). With these factors discouraging journalists, reports about sexualised hazing in conscript institutions were limited to just two reports of criminal cases in the 1990s. By the 2000s, the number of reports had increased, although they focused on broader issues such as illegal acts (e.g., video-recording in restricted zones in conscript institutions) and bullying.

Taiwan and Singapore’s media development in terms of what they chose to report and what they chose to censor was not unique especially when situated in its regional context. Most

Southeast Asian states were censoring information on institutions involved in national security just as Singapore was. Taiwan was doing the same until the end of the 1990s; by the 2000s,

Taiwan changed its course of action because of the loss of significance of conscription in the society. Similarly, the choice to liberalise the news media industry because of the impacts of the

Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997 was not unique to Taiwan, as other countries in the region

did the same; Singapore simply chose to prioritise national security over its panic over the economic impact of the crisis, choosing a course of limited liberalisation instead. With the rise of the Internet era, print media from both societies were forced to acknowledge information published online, information that were previously censored, just like in many other countries.

The key difference laid in the fact that Taiwan exploited these information to create more sensationalised news to generate more readership, while Singapore sought to provide an alternative, credible voice to the information published online. Lastly, the polarised attitudes towards male-to-male sexual interactions, aligned with the polarising attitudes towards LGBTQ movements across the region, meant that some countries in the region, like Singapore and Korea, were choosing to view these acts as unique and abnormal situations rare in themselves, while other more liberal societies like Taiwan were choosing to acknowledge the acts and its prevalence as they were.

Historically, the development of some of the abovementioned phenomenon (such as the polarising attitudes towards LGBTQ movements in Asia, as well as the impacts of AFC) were not limited to the effects discussed in this thesis. For example, the development of the Internet era was not only useful in providing information suitable for print media’s sensational report. In societies where print media are confined within media regulations, the rise of the Internet also provided opportunities for both hegemonic narratives to be reinforced, and counter-narratives to showcase themselves. In the Philippines, an example of such counter-narratives being presented would be the anti-Estrada movement that revealed the corruption that was taking place within the

Filipino government in the early 2000s.10 Similarly, in Malaysia, the rise of alternative news sites such as Malaysiakini.com and FreeMalaysia.com would serve to provide platforms to share ideas that went against the national narrative, allowing for opposing opinions and controversial facts to

10 R. A. Samad, “The Double Edged Sword: A Brief Comparison of Information Technology and Internet Development in Malaysia and some Neighbouring Countries,” IFLA Journal 27, no. 5/6 (2001): 316. DOI: 10.1177/034003520102700505.

be revealed in the course of discussion.11 Sexualised hazing activities is one of the small examples of such counter-narratives that were not discussed before the Internet era, and the effects that are discussed in this thesis are limited based on the scope of this thesis’s research.

Future researchers may consider expanding on discussing the effects of each of the discussed phenomenon on the media more broadly.

Overall, in the 1990s, while both societies were already reporting about acts of sexualised hazing activities in civilian societies, both Taiwan and Singapore were consistently conservative about reporting about sexualised hazing in conscript institutions. The divergence took place in the 2000s, where the effects of market play into print media, growing liberalisation of some societies as compared to the retention of conservative values in others, coupled with the effects of the Internet, influenced Taiwan and Singapore differently. By the end of 2009, reports on sexualised hazing in conscript institutions in Taiwan were significantly more prevalent as compared to similar reports in Singapore as the latter remained conservative about its reporting.

Even when such acts were reported in Singapore, these acts refrained from focusing on its sexual nature, whereas Taiwanese news reports explicitly confronted the sexual nature of the sexualised hazing acts in the conscript institutions, fuelled by its sensational appeal when reported.

Limited resources had been available for this research, in terms of accessing languages that the author was not familiar with (such as Malay, Tamil, or even the Taiwanese Minnan 閩南 and Hakka 客家 dialect), and in terms of time or the physical ability to visit certain relevant archives. For scholars more proficient in media analysis, one may even consider expanding this analysis into magazines rather than focusing only on newspapers, to test if the conclusions from this thesis holds true. This research has focused on providing qualitative insights on this topic rather than quantitative evidence of such a phenomenon occurring in Taiwan and Singapore. As an exploratory study with little prior research, this research has been largely dependent on

11 Samad, “Double Edged,” 317.

relying on scholarships from other disciplines as well as surrounding information to deduct the historical layout of what was happening in Taiwan and Singapore as well. Further, this research has focused mostly on the “what”s and the “how”s of sexualised hazing reportings in Taiwan and

Singapore in the 1990s and 2000s; however, arguments on the “why”s have been largely deductive. Future researchers may consider conducting quantitative research to verify the arguments suggested through this thesis, and employ other more comprehensive forms of qualitative research that may provide insights behind why the phenomenon this author identified in this thesis took place.

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